


What Harm Can Come from Reading a Book?

by EvilOtter



Category: Labyrinth (1986)
Genre: F/M, Single Parents, Teen Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-10
Updated: 2018-05-11
Packaged: 2019-05-04 21:21:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 54,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14601960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EvilOtter/pseuds/EvilOtter
Summary: Sarah thought that it was all behind her, that she and her daughter Emma could live their lives in her childhood home.  But an artifact from her past brings everything into her present.





	1. 1

**Author's Note:**

> My many thanks to Jim and Brian Henson, Jim Henson Studios and family, Terry Jones, Brian and Wendy Froud, A.C.H. Smith, Tri-Star and the many talented actors, actresses and artists that made this story come to life for our enjoyment. I enjoyed it tremendously as a young parent sharing it with his daughters when it first came out and am now enjoying sharing it with my granddaughters. I would also like to thank AO3 for providing this wonderful forum to present my work.
> 
> Jennifer Connelly, you gave inspiration to so many at such a young age and still continue to do so.
> 
> Finally, I want to say a huge thank you to Jim Henson and David Bowie for, although we never met, you both touched my life more than you could have ever imagined. Rest in Peace.

The rain outside had prevented her from roaming with her friends, that and the fact that her mother had forbade it and sentenced her to her room which meant that Emma was bored, again. It didn’t take much for boredom to set in and her mother’s suggestion that she work on the class assignment that was due soon had fallen on deaf ears.

 _“Write a story about an imaginary land with original characters and locations,”_ Mrs. Lockwood had announced nearly two weeks ago. _“It needs to be at least five pages long typed with single spacing.”_

The assignment hadn’t made a favorable impression on the fourteen year old that thought that she could find much more enjoyable things to do with her time. The cell phone that was a part of her everyday wardrobe lay sequestered in her mother’s desk drawer and wouldn’t be coming back any time soon. Alarmed by the falling grades of her child, her mother had demanded the phone until the grades were back up to an acceptable level.

She flopped back onto her bed to glare at the unoffending ceiling of her bedroom while she thought about the argument that she had had with her parent after her mother had received a notice of concern from the school.

_“Emma, these grades are terrible! You’re failing three classes and in danger of failing the others.”_

_“It’s not my fault, Mom; the teachers just don’t like me. Some of them even compare me to you! They say things like “I remember your mother, Emma, she would have had this assignment done on time and correctly” or “Your mother had so much talent and such an imagination! “_

_“They’re the teachers and you are the student and I want you to get up to your room and get busy on that assignment! Right now and I don’t want any arguments from you or the phone stays in my desk until Christmas.”_

_“You always take their side instead of mine! It’s not fair!”_

Her mother sat in their living room with her head in her hands as she replayed the argument and the slamming of the bedroom door afterward in her mind. The last sentence from her child had struck a chord in the mind of the adult and a memory surfaced from her past, a past that had been shuffled to some dusty, mostly unvisited corner of her mind. But that corner was nowhere near the forgotten memory of the marriage to and then divorce from the father of her child. It had been so long since she had visited those memories and she wasn’t certain that she even could remember any of it.

The absurdity of her tales back then had driven people away from her and it was only when she had met the one that she thought might be the love of her life that she felt loved again. Their daughter had resulted from the union a year later and two years after that she was a single parent. Once again, when she had felt safe from harm, she had fallen into an oubliette to be forgotten. He had walked away from his family never to look back, abandoning his wife, his life and his child.

_‘I never should have moved back to this house, but Dad offered it to me for such a good price. There are so many memories here, but they are better than the memories in the apartment. I really do need to remind the teachers that she’s not me even though they should know that.’_

She thought about the phone that she had taken from her child and that now lay in her desk drawer under lock and key.

_‘If I give it back now, I lose the leverage that I have for her to get that assignment done. No, it’s probably better that I hang on to it for now.’_

She rose from where she was sitting and walked into the kitchen to start dinner. At least it was Friday and the girl would have time to get things done for class on Monday.

Emma had also risen and now stalked around the room that had been her mother’s as a child. Some of the old furniture that had once occupied the room had returned to it, resurrected from its banishment to the attic. The wallpaper was the same as it had been, although her mother had promised to have it redone if she wanted it to be.

She glanced again at a large area on the wall where the wallpaper wasn’t as faded and wondered what had hung there. She considered a mirror or picture but none of that made any sense. To combat the unsightly space she had hung a large poster over it and regarded it as a strike against her parent. Her mother didn’t approve of her tastes, but the teen didn’t care because it was her room.

As the girl sat at in front of the recently retrieved vanity and gazed into the mirror at a reflection that was eerily similar to the one that had once gazed back at another young girl. She reached down to tug again at the stubborn upper right drawer that was hopelessly stuck. Her mother had attempted to open it for her but the result had been bruised knuckles and a still tightly closed drawer. To her surprise it moved slightly as though something within it had been jostled enough to allow it. Emma tugged again and was surprised when the drawer finally slid open, almost as if magic had occurred, to reveal a long forgotten trove within it.

Her hand reached down to lift a beautiful music box that had a gilt gazebo surrounding a figure in white on top of it and she held it up to admire the item before setting it down on a space that seemed to be meant for it. A series of very old photographs some of them of her grandmother, whom she recognized from other pictures that her mother possessed came out of the drawer next and were soon arranged around the edge of the mirror in a fashion that seemed to be predetermined. She saw nothing remaining in the drawer that could have held it shut and finally closed the space before starting to rise from the chair. She was preparing to step away from the vanity when a faint thump alerted her and she turned back to the closed drawer, wondering what had fallen to make the noise. The drawer opened easily and she gazed in to see an old book with a red cover lying in the space.

She reached down to retrieve the book just as the dancer on the music box began to spin and music that she had never heard before but was eerily familiar began to play. She turned the book over to see the title of the book printed on the cover.

THE LABYRINTH

It meant nothing to her and she really wasn’t even certain what a labyrinth even was, although she had heard about them. She looked up from the book and back into the mirror to have what she saw make her drop the book in shock.

The room that she saw was her room but not her room. The bed was there with a partial canopy over the head of it and posters, some of which she had seen in a box in the attic, hung on the walls. A large shelf with arched openings hung on the vacant space on the wall with each space filled by a stuffed animal of some sort although one space was empty.

Curious about what she was seeing she moved to one side to examine the wall again and when she turned back to the mirror she found that the view had changed to reveal the room in its “once was” appearance. Toys and games and other things, many of which she had seen in the attic, populated shelves that were no longer there. She bent to retrieve the dropped book before glancing into the mirror again and this time what she saw not only made her drop the book but scream as well.

A face that was hers but not hers looked back at her. The blue eyes and straight dark hair that tumbled down over her shoulders was the same, but the face was so similar yet different that she knew it had to be her mother. She suddenly heard feet running up the stairs and hurried to shove the music box, photos and book back into the drawer before slamming it shut just as her mother rushed into the room.

“I heard you scream, is everything okay?”

“I thought that I saw a mouse,” the girl lied.

“I guess that I’ll have to get some traps,” her mother said as she looked around the room that she could still see as it had once been when she had been her daughter’s age.

“Mom, can I have some of the things up in the attic for my room?”

“I don’t see why not, but you’ll probably want to wipe them off before you bring them in,” her mother responded. “Have you done any thinking about the wallpaper?”

“I kind of like it. Mom,” the girl asked, “what used to hang there?”

Sarah’s eyes followed her daughter’s arm to the blank space on the wall and she could still clearly see the shelf that had once contained her stuffed animals. It had been taken down long ago, not long after her adventure in the Underground, and the toys that had once occupied her room banished to boxes that still occupied the attic. Only Lancelot the bear had escaped that fate as Toby had passed the toy on to Emma and he now lay silently on the bed as though the intervening years had never happened. She hadn’t seen the shelf since that time and wondered where it was.

‘If it’s not in the attic its likely overhead in the garage because I know that it never went into Toby’s room.’

“Mom?”

She broke out of her thoughts at the sound the impatience in her child’s voice.

_‘She’s so like I was.’_

“I had a shelf there at one time, it hung over the darker patch.”

“Was it for books?”

“No, actually I had stuffed animals on it. Lancelot spent a lot of time there, he had his own cubbyhole.”

“Where is it?”

“I’m not certain, Emma. Your grandfather took it down for me after I outgrew it. Where it went after that I have no idea.”

“Oh. If we find it can I have it?”

“I suppose, but why? I thought that you liked your posters there.”

“Kind of, but not really,” the girl answered as she wrinkled her nose slightly.

“We’ll have to poke around for it. Surely it’s still around somewhere.”

Sarah glanced at the vanity and then at the offending drawer. It had been so long and she couldn’t remember what she had last placed in it, but it made her uneasy as haunting traces of memories tickled the edges of her mind. She shook her head and then ruffled her child’s hair before speaking again.

“Dinner will be ready soon. You can invite the mouse along if you want.”

Emma giggled at the thought and then watched as her mother left the room and closed the door behind her. She waited for a few moments and then walked back to the vanity to pull the book back out of the drawer. The name on the red cover intrigued her and she opened the book to skim through the pages. A marked page drew her to it and she read that was obviously a speech that the hero of the story was giving. Her brilliant blue eyes widened as they read a line and suddenly her assignment became so much easier than she ever believed that it could.

“Goblin city? Thank you, Mom, this book just made things so much easier and now I know just what I’m going to write about!”

She lay back on her bed and began to read out of the old book while her mind wandered through the world that it was laying out for her. A search on her laptop revealed no sign of the book, which meant that it was so obscure that she might even get away with copying the whole assignment from it. All of the necessary things were there, a fantasy setting, strange characters and weird creatures. She wasn’t certain that she liked the Goblin King, for he seemed rather menacing even though he seemed to care for the girl in the story.

What bothered her the most was the propensity of goblins for stealing babies and using their magic to turn the children into goblins themselves.

_‘What mother would fail to search for her child to prevent it from meeting that fate?’ she wondered. “I would search forever to find my baby, if I had one, but would Daddy search for me or let me turn into a goblin? Would Mom even tell him that I was missing or would she let me become a goblin? I know that I can be a pain, but would she search for me?’_

Sarah sat at the table while she worked at her laptop and occasionally glanced upwards towards the room that her daughter now occupied. Emma had suffered after the divorce, she knew that for a fact and understood the pain that the child was feeling because she had suffered it herself. A missing parent who had had moved on without her and who had been all too soon replaced by a stepmother who didn’t appear to care for her or her feelings.

Of course the child upstairs was going to strike back and act out, she had. The timer on the oven told her that dinner was almost done and she glanced up again towards the direction of the bedroom that she had once occupied.

“What did I put in that drawer?” she asked herself. “Is it still there, or did Daddy empty the drawer and put everything in a box somewhere? Well, I guess that I will find out when we get it open.” Sarah tried to put the thought out of her mind, but a nameless dread would linger around her mind for a while.

Several minutes later the timer on the counter chimed and she rose to check the meal that she had prepared. Cooking for the two of them was easy, they had similar tastes. A quick examination proved that the meal was ready and she walked to the staircase to call up to her child.

“Emma! Dinner’s ready!”

The girl raised her eyes from the book before rising from the bed and then carefully tucking the book under her pillow. Her laptop, which was already open to a document that she was filling with pirated notes, was carefully closed and laid aside. She hurried out of the room and down the stairs to get to the dining room before her mother came to find her.

_‘I don’t know why I’m so worried about Mom knowing that I have those things. She said that I could have anything that I found and wanted when we moved in here.’_

Sarah looked up as her daughter walked into the room and then settled at her place at the table. Why she did it Sarah didn’t know, but the table was still set for three. It had been a long time, except for when they had company, that more than two places had been needed.

Emma watched as her mother sat the casserole dish onto the mat that had been placed on the table to prevent scorching the antique piece of furniture. Her nose twitched at the smell of her favorite dish and she was about to prepare for the blessing when she caught movement out of the corner of her eye. She turned her head in that direction and saw only wall.

The fourteen year old shook her head and then turned her attention back to the blessing that her mother was preparing to say. Sarah looked at her daughter with a bemused look before beginning to recite the blessing that she had learned as a child and that she had passed on to her own offspring. When the blessing ended, Emma dipped some of the meal onto her plate and then selected a piece of the garlic bread that was on a separate platter to top off the lasagna.

“Mom, why did Grandpa and Grandma decide to move out of this house?”

“I don’t know why, they probably just wanted something smaller. With your Uncle Toby off to college, they really didn’t need all of the room that is here. We don’t really need it either, but the price was right and I wanted to get out of the apartment so you could stretch your legs when you want to.”

“Oh, I guess that that’s a good reason,” Emma replied as she nodded her head while she chewed. “Can I really have any of your old things that I find and want?”

“Well, there are a few things that I might decide to reclaim, but other than that I don’t see a problem with it. Why?”

“I just thought that I would really like to have that shelf that you told me about.”

“I’ll tell you what, after dinner we can walk out into the garage. I know that it’s not in the attic because we would have seen it, so it has to be there. I think that between the two of us we can get it back upstairs and into the room. After that we’ll have to figure out how to hang it on the wall. It shouldn’t be too hard and I’ve gotten pretty handy with a screwdriver.”

They talked quietly while they ate and Emma was feeling pretty good about things when something caught her eye again and she turned in time to see furtive movement. She rose and walked away from the table to investigate while her mother watched her curiously. The girl arrived at the source of the motion and found nothing.

“Is something wrong, Emma?”

“I thought that I saw something.”

“Maybe it was your mouse,” Sarah responded with a laugh.

“He must have smelled the food, but I don’t see him now.”

“I’ll have to get some traps.”

“Do we have to kill him?” the girl whined with sympathy.  "It'll probably hurt a lot!"

“We don’t want him inviting his friends inside otherwise we’ll be the ones eating crumbs. Don’t worry, Em, its quick and humane. I promise that I’ll get rid of the evidence before you see it.”

“Okay, but mice are really cute.”

“They’re cute until they get into the food and start multiplying.”

The girl giggled at the thought and then became serious again.

“Are you going to eat that last piece of garlic bread, Mom?”

“I’ll tell you what, why don’t we split it? I get half and so do you, right?”

“Right!”

The word, spoken so innocently by her child, brought back memories of a dark place and one who had become a friend, despite his early shortcomings.

_‘Hoggle! So many times in my life I’ve needed you and not been able to turn to you. You wouldn’t have understood what I was going through.’_

If she thought hard enough, Sarah could still see the dwarf-like person that she had found while he was involved in exterminating fairies. She had needed to get into the labyrinth to find Toby after she had wished him taken by the goblins and Hoggle had seemed less than willing to help her. At that moment she could never have believed how helpful he would eventually become. He had been the first of the group of friends that had helped her recover Toby from Jareth. It had all seemed so hopeless at the time and she had felt helpless until he had come to her aid.

She could still feel herself falling down that terrible shaft with the multitude of hands grasping at her as she descended. Even then she had realized that they truly were helping her, had they not she would have crashed to her death upon hitting the floor of the oubliette. It had been then that the tiny being had come to her aid the first time and it hadn’t been the last.

Emma appeared before her to offer her the other half of the slice of garlic bread while she chewed on a bite of her own piece. Sarah accepted the offer and watched as the child that she had seen grow from an infant to a young woman turned to pick up her the glass of ice tea that she had been sipping from. In many ways, Sarah thought, the girl was a mirror that she could look at to see herself at that age because they looked that much alike.

“Have you given any thought to the writing assignment that Mrs. Lockwood assigned?”

“I’ve got some ideas, but I’m a long way from being finished.”

“At least your attitude about it has changed. You’re thinking about that phone aren’t you?”

“Not really, Mom, but it would be nice to have it back.”

“We’ll see about that once you finish the paper and I see your grades improve.”

“Okay,” the girl replied. “Mom, can we go out into the garage and look for that shelf?”

“Let’s go, surely it won’t be too hard to find. There are only a few places that it might have gotten stashed.”

Emma nodded as she took another sip from her glass to wash the last of her garlic bread down. She hurried to the door that led to the garage and pulled it open before reaching in and turning on the overhead light. The girl stepped out into the space, past the car that her mother drove and started looking up into the space where long forgotten things languished. A sudden ray of light startled her and she squeaked in surprise as she bumped into her mother while backpedaling.

“Are you okay, Em?”

The flashlight that was held in her mother’s hand explained the sudden ray of light and the teen nodded before looking back up towards the eaves of the structure.

“There it is,” Sarah announced as she pointed.

Emma’s eyes followed her mother’s gesture and she saw the end of their quarry. A ladder nearby was soon erected and the girl watched as her mother climbed up to make certain that nothing heavy was stored on top of the shelf. Satisfied that there was no danger of something falling on top of her child, Sarah grasped the shelf and pulled it towards her. Emma grimaced at the sound of the wood sliding across other wood and watched as the back of the shelf grew.

“Em, I want you to take my light. I’m going to lower the shelf onto the ladder so you’ll have to make sure that it doesn’t fall backwards.”

“Please don’t drop it and squish me,” the girl half pled.

“I promise that I won’t. I don’t want to have to write that paper for you. It’s not heavy, just awkward. That stepstool should be enough for you to stand on to help me.”

Emma hurried to set the light aside and pull the stepstool nearer to the ladder that her mother occupied. She climbed up to prepare to accept her part of the load and watched as the shelf slowly lowered until she was able to get her hands on it as well. Finally, after much juggling for position, the women were able to lower the shelf to the top of the ladder and then down onto the floor. Emma stepped around to look at it and Sarah found herself reliving memories again.

Lancelot the bear was _missing_ and Sarah knew where he was. Obviously _she_ had come into Sarah’s room and taken the bear for Toby. It angered Sarah when anyone came into her room and bothered _her_ things, her things! She charged from the room and raced across the hallway to find the bear lying on the floor next to Toby’s crib while the baby wailed at the top of his lungs.

Why did she have to put up with this torment? Why had Daddy married _her_? Why couldn’t he and Mom have worked things out and stayed together? She had told the baby a story about the goblins coming per their king’s wishes and taking him away to become a goblin too. But Toby had been unimpressed with the story and wailed even louder. She had threatened Toby that she was going to say the words which would call the goblins and had even tried to call them, to no avail. It had been at that time that she had put the crying baby back into the crib and walked to the light switch to turn off the light. Then she had switched off the light and made a mistake that she could never forget.

She had said the words.

_I wish the goblins would come and take you away, right now!_

She started to walk away from the darkened room and suddenly realized that she could no longer hear crying. Alarmed she had turned back to the room and found that for some reason the lights wouldn’t work. Toby’s bed was void of movement and sound and she had approached it to pull back the covers and find, much to her horror, that the bed was vacant. Then all hell had broken loose in the room and Jareth had entered her life with a deal.

Accept his gift and forget about Toby!

The shelf shifted in her grasp and she came out of her reverie to see that Emma was tugging at it. She looked at her daughter and smiled before speaking.

“You want it in your room that badly, do you, Em?”

A nod was the only answer and it was not long before the shelf was making the trip back up the stairs to the room that it had been removed from. Sarah discovered a small baggie of screws taped to one of the shelves and realized that they were the screws which had held it on the wall. Once they were in the room the women sat the shelf onto the floor in front of the space that it would occupy and Emma watched her mother leave to retrieve the cordless screwdriver from their kitchen. The offending posters came down and the girl turned as her mother reentered the room.

“Are you certain about this, Emma?”

The girl nodded and then glanced curiously at the stepladder that her mother had brought along.

“We can set the shelf on this to hold it in place while we get the screws started," Sarah explained to her child. "See the holes that they left when it was taken down? We need to put the screws back into those holes to make certain that it doesn’t pull the wall down. That would be a rude awakening if it happened in the middle of the night!”

Thoughts of the walls of her room falling brought back more memories for Sarah as she remembered the Junk Lady and the things that she had been offered to forget Toby, to stay in the dream state that she was in until the clock keeping time had struck thirteen and there was no hope of reclaiming her brother. Then she had seen the book and once again read the lines that would eventually defeat Jareth.

“Mom?”

Sarah jolted herself out of the memory and returned to the task that she and her daughter had begun. The pair struggled for a while until Sarah managed to get the first of the long screws through the hole in the back of the shelf and into one of the holes in the wall. Remembering watching her father so many years before, Sarah ran the screw into the wall part way and then helped her daughter raise the shelf in order to line up the second screw and hole. A moment later the screw was spiraling into the hole and the shelf was tightening against the wall. It was not long, after inserting the other six screws and tightening them, before the shelf hung firmly against the wall as though it had never been absent.

They stood back to admire their handiwork and then Emma hurried to find a dust cloth to clean the accumulated debris from the wooden surface. The cleaning didn’t take long and soon the wood shone once again.

“Very nice, Em, it looks like it did when I lived in this room.”

“Which one of these was Lancelot’s cubbyhole?”

“That one,” Sarah announced as she pointed out the space that the bear had once occupied.

Emma walked to her bed to pick up the stuffed bear and soon he sat proudly once again in the space that he had vacated long before. Sarah looked at the shelf uneasily as she realized that, somehow, the return of the shelf had conjured memories of the room’s “once was” appearance. Now, with Lancelot back in his longtime cubby, her old room seemed to have returned to yesterday even more.

The job done, Sarah gathered the tools and joined her child as they walked back down to the living room. The remainder of the night would be spent talking about the accomplishments of the evening and the assignment that needed to be finished.

Unheard by either of them a small voice asked a question.

“Did she say it yet?”


	2. Chapter 2

_Pssst!_

There was a short squeal of agony and an almost inaudible thump as the fairy hit the ground before having dirt kicked over her remains. No mercy was given to her as her killer moved on to the next of her kin that could be seen.

_Pssst!_

That made fifty-five for the morning, actually one more than this time the day before but probably not as many as there would be tomorrow. Hunting fairies was like that, you never knew how many you would get in a day, but there would be just as many if not more of them the next morning. Before kicking dirt over the fallen creature, Hoggle looked down at her with a tinge of regret. She had called him a monster for killing the fairies, but that was before she had learned that fairies have painful bites. He couldn’t fault the girl for misunderstanding, for he had done enough of it himself during his life.

The time since Sarah had left the land that he lived in had been difficult. True, he still had friends in Ludo and Sir Didymus, but it had been the girl that had shown him what friendship truly was. She had forgiven all that he had done and had turned her attention to the king that still lived in the castle at the center of Goblin City. Jareth had once traveled his domain frequently, but since his defeat by the girl hadn’t been seen as much. Many had feared his wrath after Sarah had bested him, but that wrath had never come, instead it had manifested itself in a several years long sulk.

_Pssst!_

Fifty-six! The fallen fairy looked up at him as he passed her with a gaze of forgiveness, not unlike the one that Sarah had given him, as she knew that Jareth still commanded the dwarf to an extent and that he was only doing his job. At least he had spared her the indignity of having dirt thrown over her.

Hoggle looked down the long wall of the perimeter of the labyrinth and knew that he had a long way to go before calling it quits. Then again, what else was there for him to do, his life since Sarah’s departure had been one of loneliness as he waited in vain for her to need him. At first, right after she had reclaimed her brother, the girl had needed him and the others frequently and he could not have been happier. It gave him a chance to see the one person that he could call a true friend, one that had shown him forgiveness and understanding.

Then she had grown up and married and her need for him had diminished. A child had followed shortly after that, a girl not unlike her mother, and the need for her friends had nearly vanished. She had become busy with her life and he could not fault her for the attention that she was showing to her daughter.

Abruptly she had called on him one day and he had more than happily answered her summons. Her mate had abandoned her, leaving her alone except for the child, and she had needed someone to understand her. Hoggle hated to tell her that the fact was he didn’t understand any of what she was talking about. He had merely listened and offered what help he could, which wasn’t much.

Over the years, as her daughter grew, Sarah had needed him and the other two infrequently until finally the need had all but vanished. He couldn’t remember the last time that she had called upon him and had given up hope of it ever happening again.

Now he tended to the labyrinth in a never ending struggle to keep it erect. The goblins had not taken a baby since Toby and tended to stay near Goblin City and the castle. Hoggle wasn’t sure if they had stopped taking babies under orders from their king or if they were so embarrassed by their defeat in the battle that they had simply given up. The rocks had come to their aid after Ludo had called upon them and the goblins, uncertain how to fight rocks, had been easily beaten. Now, years later, the city still bore the scars of the battle and debris still lay where it had fallen during the conflict.

The dwarf grumbled aloud as he noticed another stone had fallen from the walls. The goblins assigned to the repair crews would have a long night ahead of them. Already today he had counted ten stones lying on the ground outside the walls and who knew how many were down within the labyrinth. A fairy fluttered ahead of him and he sped up to reach the pest before it escaped. He raised the nozzle of his sprayer to douse the creature and then lowered it before looking down at the tool. Angry suddenly, he growled and then cast it as far from him as he could. An answering crash announced its landing in some brush.

“Damn!”

He strode away from the area, not looking back, as he wished that he could call upon Sarah as she had once called upon him. Hoggle had tried to do so many times, but it never had worked and he wondered if his remaining friends had experienced any more luck than he had. The door into the labyrinth stood before him and opened as he approached and remembered Sarah’s nearly frantic need to enter the twisting path to the castle.

Hoggle remembered asking her which way she was going to go and she had responded to his question with one of her own. The question had irritated him and the discussion had ended with her telling him that he could just leave. He had walked away from the girl and back out to his chores, while also willing the doors to close behind him.

Now he was stepping back into the labyrinth through an entrance that he didn’t often use. The dwarf wasn’t constrained by the need to solve the labyrinth, he knew the paths by heart, and he walked steadily past the watching lichen, the eye stalks of the strange creatures turning to follow his movement. As bad as his life was, he thought, at least he didn’t have to stay in one place and wait for something to move so that he could look at it.

The dwarf walked slowly through the twisting passageways until he reached the one that contained the entrance to his home. The wall slid aside to allow him entrance into an area where his small home sat. He had spent considerable time straightening the area and removing debris left by his previous habits. Sarah had never visited the place and he mourned that fact, he would have loved to have had her company. The door to his home opened and he entered the hut to settle down into his chair. He glanced up at the mantle to gaze at a small bracelet that was encased in a shrine of sorts.

Plastic, she had called it all those years ago, he still had no idea what plastic was but the item had been _hers_. Then she had gifted it to him in exchange for his aid in escaping the oubliette that she had ended up in. The item had gotten him into a spot of trouble with Jareth, who immediately had warned him about any attempts at betrayal and the consequences of such actions.

He glanced at the meal that was cooking in the pot over the fire in the mantle. It should be ready soon and he was hungry. The food was nothing like his mother made, but it was edible and he was not going to turn his nose up at it. Another look at the bracelet appeased him and he leaned forward to begin dipping some of the stew into a bowl before settling back in the lonely room to eat.

Tomorrow, he promised himself, he would travel to Ludo’s home in the mountains nearby to spend some time with his friend. Didymus was a bit harder to visit, the small squire still made his home in the Bog of Eternal Stench where he jealously guarded the stone bridge that allowed passage through his domain. Hoggle didn’t like to spend much time in the bog; it bothered his sinuses and made it hard to breathe.

The stew soothed him and he sipped the drink that filled his cup as he thought about Jareth. He had told the girl the truth when he had told her that he was a coward and that the king frightened him. Jareth had used his powers, and height, to intimidate the much shorter person that he had forced into servitude. Somehow the girl had overcome the Goblin King, probably with her stubbornness, and had been able to escape the castle with her brother. Jareth had wilted after that and now was far less prevalent than he had been before. This troubled Hoggle, as you never knew when Jareth would get a head of steam and then come back full strength. Then, when and if that happened, those who had assisted Sarah would be in for trouble.

The tiny man slipped the shoes off of his weary feet and then his socks. He wriggled his toes to restore the feeling in them and allowed them to enjoy the fresh air that came in to his home through the still open door.

“Sarah, will you ever need me again?”

He sat the bowl aside and wiped at the tear that had slipped down his cheek. The clock on his wall showed the hands nearing the time when he cleaned up his home and prepared to go to bed. Only sleep allowed him any escape from the pain and that wasn’t always successful. He retrieved the bowl to rise and walk to the rough sink where he washed it clean of the remnants of his meal before setting it aside to dry. His cup was next and it was also soon sitting aside to dry.  
His hand brushed his hip and once again he noticed the absence of the jewels that had once been a part of his wardrobe. The incessant rattle of the sack of jewelry had driven him nearly insane one day and it had been banished to a chest next to his bed where it lay next to the sword that he had claimed during the battle. He had, for a while, gone to the chest every day to look at the items that had once been so important to him. Now they held little interest for him, they actually had gotten in the way many times, and he was happy to be shed of them. Once upon a time he would have noticed their absence instantly, now he had to feel for them to make certain that they weren’t present. He looked out through the window at the castle in the distance before uttering a familiar curse.

“Damn you, Jareth!”

He walked to the door and closed it before making his way back to his bedroom and closing that door behind him. The old quilt that covered his bed would be wrapped around him soon and he would sleep a fitful sleep as he always did.

As he prepared for bed he failed to see the shadowy figure that had come out of nowhere. It slowly walked around the tiny house, but never attempted to enter the structure. Jareth knew that he was unwelcome in the home and that he could not cross the boundary that the door represented. Hoggle had no children for him to take and would not have been likely to request it anyhow. Sarah had done so because she had no idea what she was saying and probably didn’t believe that it would happen in the first place. Jareth stopped his circuit of the house as a thought came to him.

_‘I was a lot like her! I didn’t believe in the first place that she would ever solve the labyrinth or win the baby back from me. I was a fool to think that she would ever willingly surrender to me. That fool of a goblin who said that she would never give up wasn’t so foolish after all!’_

The Goblin King once again looked at the closed door before him before simply vanishing as though he had never been. Hoggle, unaware of how close he had come to having unwanted company, climbed into bed and was soon fast asleep to dream dreams of a dark haired young girl that he had met years ago and who now seemed to be lost to him.

But one of the dreams wasn’t like the other and the subconscious doesn’t discriminate between what is real and what is imagined or different. In the dream, another dark haired young girl was coming perilously close to opening a doorway that her mother had stepped through and closed a long time ago and, if Hoggle had known what was about to happen, he would have warned the child to walk away.

Jareth was also aware of the girl that now occupied the room that had once been Sarah’s. She was so like her mother had been years before, but there was no younger brother for her to ask him to take. He rather hoped that she would read the book that her mother had used to defeat him so long ago, but knew that Sarah would not hesitate to search for her child. This time, he knew, the woman who had once been the girl would not give up until he was utterly defeated. The girl would be left alone. He would have to be content to watch Sarah from afar.

Emma sat alone in her bedroom while she read the book that she had found in her mother’s vanity drawer. The file in her laptop was filling with ideas for the project and she knew that the job ahead of her would be much easier. The girl looked up from the page that she was on and glanced around the room unaware that her mother was also thinking about the room.

Sarah hadn’t been happy about it, but all of the stuffed animals that had once populated the shelf had returned to their homes in the days since they had rehung the shelf. The girl had insisted that her parent help her make the shelf look as it had and the reminders for Sarah had been haunting. The bedroom was beginning to look eerily as it had when she had been Emma’s age and somehow the girl knew where to put things where she had had them.

The toys had reappeared in the room gradually and she felt a sense of growing dread as she wondered if somehow Jareth was influencing her daughter and wondered, if he was, if he represented a danger to Emma.

Sarah knew it was all nonsense, of course, as she would never consider asking the goblins to steal her daughter. The incident with Toby had been brought about by the gone wild emotions of a teenager caught in a situation that she didn’t like. She had been instantly remorseful when Toby had vanished and Jareth had entered her life, but that had been immaterial to the man or whatever he was. She had asked that the child be taken and the goblins had obliged her request. Who was she to try to change to deal when they had done exactly what she had wanted and asked?

The one thing that relieved her was the fact that it was still missing. She hoped that the book would never come to light and perhaps had even been lost forever. A lot of things had been disposed of or banished to some dark corner of the attic, hopefully never to be seen again, and she hoped that the book was one of them. The words that had helped her recover Toby were the only good things to come from the book and she never wanted to see it again. It had almost cost her a lot.

_‘How is she able to know where I had things and why does she want them there?’_

Surely Jareth hadn’t made contact with Emma, or had he? A terrible feeling filled Sarah and she rose to walk up the stairs to her daughter’s room. She arrived at the top of the stairs and looked fearfully at the door which had, at one time, led to her sanctuary. She was about to do something that she had hated when she was Emma’s age, but she had to make certain that her child was safe. Sarah reached forward and, without knocking, opened the door and entered the bedroom.

Startled by the sudden appearance of her mother, Emma had no chance to put the music box and photos back into the drawer. She whirled in an attempt to conceal the book under her pillow, but her mother was just as quick.

A moment later, the red book with the words THE LABYRINTH on the cover was in Sarah’s hands again and she looked down at her daughter with dread while Emma returned the concern with a glare.

“You’re _supposed_ to knock, Mom.”

“Where did you get this book, Emma?”

“I found it, why?”

Sarah looked at the open drawer as that night so long ago replayed itself. She had placed it, the music box and the photos in the drawer as her father and stepmother had arrived home.

“It was in the drawer wasn’t it?”

“Yes. Why are you getting so freaked about some old book?”

“You have no idea.”

“Then why don’t you tell me! Stop treating me like I’m a little kid, Mom, I can handle things!”

“Emma, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Why don’t you try?”

Sarah looked down at the book once again and then closed it before turning and starting to leave the room. Emma rose from the bed and hurried to intercept her parent.

“I was reading that,” she yelled as she reached for the book.

“There are much better things to read, Emma. This is for your own good.”

“Give it back, Mom! You said that I could have anything that I found that I wanted and I want it!”

“No, Em, this is one thing that I will not budge on. I’m afraid that you’ll have to read something else.”

“But I need it, Mom,” the girl answered as her tone turned from anger to pleading.

Sarah looked down at the book and then at the open laptop on her child’s bed as she realized the reason for Emma’s anguish.

“You’ve been taking ideas for your paper from this book, haven’t you?”

“Yes,” Emma responded with less pleading and a touch of menace in her voice. “Why?”

“I can’t allow you to do it, Em.”

“You hate me! You told me to get busy on the paper and I am. Now you want me to give up the only source material that I have for my work, it’s not fair!”

“I don’t hate you. I’m sorry, Emma, but I can’t let you use this book and you need to delete the file on your computer where you have all of this stored.”

“I won’t do it!”

“Don’t you ever take that tone with me again, Emma Nichole!”

Emma turned away from her mother and stalked across her room to sit down on the bed. She slammed the laptop shut, but made no effort to delete the files that her mother had demanded.

“Delete the files or I take the computer, Emma.”

“NO!”

Sarah crossed the room and reached down to seize the laptop from her child. Emma, knowing that she could not win, watched her mother with glowering eyes but made no movement to resist the confiscation. She watched as her mother opened the screen and then used the touch pad to move the cursor to the file that she wanted.

“I’m sorry, Emma, but I have to do this and someday I’ll explain it all, but today is not the day.”

“Yeah, right.”

The teenager watched as her mother entered the command to delete the file and then finally laid the unit back onto her child’s bed.

“Dinner will be ready soon.”

“I’m not hungry. I need the time to write a paper that someone who says that she _loves_ me just deleted.”

“It will be down there if you decide that you want to eat. I’m sorry, Emma, I truly am.”

Grasping the book tightly, Sarah walked out of the room and closed the door behind her while her daughter rolled over on the bed to bury her face in the pillow.

The forgotten laptop lay unoffending on the bed and the girl pushed it aside to allow more room for her.

 _‘Why,’_ she wondered, _‘do parents tell you to do something and then freak out when you do what you were told to do? It’s just a dumb old book! I don’t know why she is getting so upset about me reading it.’_

Sarah sat at her desk while she looked down at a book that she had hoped would never come to light again. It all made sense now, she had put the book in the drawer that night and it had lain there all of these years. Her father had never attempted to open the drawer to empty it, instead merely transporting the vanity up to the attic where it had sat waiting for another young girl to enjoy it. Now Emma knew about the book and had read part of it.

She knew her daughter; Emma would remember enough to duplicate the file that had been deleted. There was no way to stop the inevitable; the girl would use what she had read to write her paper. At least there wouldn’t be any specifics, at least not enough to get her into trouble for copying out of the book and the door to Jareth had been slammed shut. She unlocked the desk drawer and slid the book into it to sit next to the confiscated cellphone. It would be safe here until she figured out where to put it forever.

The lock in the drawer clicked shut and the key went back onto the chain around her neck. The book was secure, her child was safe and Jareth the Goblin King was never going to be part of her life again. Tomorrow she would coax her child into the car and they would spend the day shopping. Hopefully some time away would help Emma get over what had just happened between them.

The timer dinged in the kitchen and she rose to pull the meal out of the oven. She had made her daughter’s favorite and hoped that the child would venture downstairs when she got hungry enough to eat. Emma was definitely her child because they had the same stubborn streak. She fixed herself a plate and then sat down alone at the table to eat while she looked at the empty places around her.

Emma finally raised her head to look around the room. She picked up her laptop and then sat up as she opened it.

 _‘Mom,_ ’ she thought, _‘I would have thought that with you working in an office that you would think about someone backing up their files and documents.’_

A moment later the “deleted” files reappeared before the eyes of the child and she was soon reading the very chapter that she had been before her mother’s entry. The story had taken a turn for the surreal and she finally closed the file to rise to walk down to dinner while glancing at the printer that her mother had provided. Had it not been for the scanner on her printer, she would have lost the book forever and with it any chance of a passing grade.

Sarah heard the door to Emma’s room open and looked up as the teen entered the room a short time later. She could tell that her daughter had been crying and that she was still upset and wondered if the shopping trip would be enough to soothe the ruffled feathers of the girl.

“Emma, dinner is in the fridge. Just pop it into the microwave, it shouldn’t take long to warm,” she called out to her child as the girl walked into the kitchen.

A moment later she heard the clatter of a plate being filled and then the sound of the microwave starting. Another sound told her that the girl was putting the casserole dish back into the refrigerator before the door closed once again. She rose from where she was sitting to walk to the kitchen to peer in at her child. Emma stood at the counter while she poured tea into a glass.

“Honey, please don’t be angry with me. I did what I did to protect you.”

“Protect me? What are you protecting me from, Mom? It was an old book about goblins and a maze, there’s not much that is very sinister there.”

“There’s more than you know.”

The girl fixed her mother with a strange glare as she turned to look at her parent.

“You always tell me to trust _you_ , Mom. Why don’t you trust _me_?”

“I do trust you, Em, it’s just that I have a job to make certain that you’re safe.”

“Well, I am! You moved me away from my friends to this house and now won’t even let me read an old book.”

“I thought that you would like a home with room to explore and meet new people.”

“I love the house, Mom, but you have to let me explore things on my own and not get so freaked when I do something.”

“Emma, I will explain everything when I think that you’re old enough to understand, but right now I need to protect you. Your food is hot,” Sarah added as the timer chimed.

The girl nodded and then turned to pull the plate out before walking to the table to sit down at her normal place. Sarah, seeing progress, sat down at the spot that she normally occupied.

“Do you want to go into town tomorrow to do some shopping?”

“You mean it?” Emma responded as she looked up hopefully.

“Of course, I mean it, Em.”

“Can I have those shoes that I saw last time?” the girl asked as her face brightened.

“We’ll see.”

“How about my phone, can I have it back?”

“Whoa, slow down, first I need you to tell me what ideas you have about the paper. I know that it will likely have something to do with goblins,” Sarah said as she watched Emma’s face register surprise.

“I can use the idea, can’t I?”

“I suppose.”

The girl smiled and then took another bite of the meal in front of her. She looked down at her plate and then at her parent.

“Mom, when I grow up and move away, you _have_ to give me the recipe for this.”

Sarah laughed and then responded to her daughter.

“That is about the easiest request that I have heard in a long time.”

“Mom?”

“Yes, Em.”

“Do goblins really steal children?”

Sarah winced at the question and then shook her head.

“Emma, goblins aren’t real. They’re fantasy, nothing more, please remember that.”

“But the story seemed so real.”

“That’s what writers are supposed to do, make their stories seem real.”

“Mom, did you know that in the story mothers once let the goblins take their babies?”

“Yes, I knew that.”

“Sometimes they even asked the goblins to take their children. Then they would turn the children into goblins that would take even more kids.”

Sarah was becoming increasingly uneasy about the line of conversation but tried desperately to remain calm as her child continued.

“I think that goblins at one time had been fairies that turned bad. They still granted wishes but the wishes that they granted were bad ones, like taking little kids whose parents didn’t want them anymore.”

“Well, I want you and I would never let them have you.”

Emma finished her meal and then rose to wash off the plate before placing it in the dishwasher.

“At least we have this now,” she noted, “I hated doing dishes.”

“Yes, we do, but it doesn’t take out the garbage and it’s your turn tonight.”

“I hate taking out the garbage.”

“A deal is a deal, Emma. It’s part of your chores.”

The girl moaned and then walked to the garbage can that stood in one corner of the room where she stopped to look down at the full bag. She made a face and then looked at her mother again with pleading in her eyes.

“Do I have to?”

“Emma, it’s your turn.”

The teen looked down at the bag again before becoming angry and saying words which terrified her mother to her very core.

“I wish that the goblins would take me away, right now!”

The girl simply vanished as her mother screamed.

“Emma!”

Sarah heard the noise at the door and walked to it to admit Jareth, the Goblin King, back into her life.


	3. Chapter 3

He stood before her, seemingly unchanged by the passage of years. She remembered meeting him in this very home, although now it was not in the bedroom of her father and stepmother where she pled for the return of her baby brother. Now he stood looking at her with the same dismissive expression that he always wore and when she finally spoke, it was without the tremble that had been in her voice so many years before.

“Return my daughter, Jareth.”

“Sarah, you still haven’t learned even though I thought that the passage of time would have wizened you. She asked that she be taken and so she was. I won’t bother you with the formalities because you know exactly where she is.”

“You really want me to humiliate you again, don’t you?”

“Quite the opposite, Sarah, this time I intend to humiliate you. This time I intend to keep what I have taken and there is nothing that you can do to stop me. The labyrinth will defeat you this time, Sarah, and I will enjoy watching your daughter become one of my goblins forever. It is such a pity, Sarah; because you could have prevented it all by simply telling her about me.”

“There wasn’t much to tell.”

An instant later, they were standing on a very familiar rise as they overlooked the labyrinth that stretched across the landscape. Sarah looked into the eyes of the Goblin King as he stared at her.

_‘Strange,’_ she thought, _‘he looks afraid. He knows that I can beat him again and he’s worried about it.’_

“Oh, I know, Sarah, I know that you will attempt to find your friends in order to gain their aid and you might even succeed in finding them. But I told you last time that I could be cruel and this time I shall be. I shall be merciless, Sarah, and this time there may actually be certain death. Do you still wish to challenge me?”

“How can you even ask that, Jareth? Of course, I have to challenge you. She’s my daughter, my own flesh and blood and there is no way that I would ever consider abandoning her.”

Jareth reached up to tap his chin and then turned to where the familiar clock was already hanging. Thirteen hours, that’s all that there was room for on the clock, if he let them run their course.

“I am quite certain that you are familiar with this clock, Sarah. You may have tried to forget me by refusing to talk about me or let your daughter know about our past, but the dance that we share this time shall not be at a ball. One of us shall lose and lose badly, and I hope that you are prepared to feel the pain of defeat, Sarah.”

“If the performance of your goblins last time is any indication, Jareth, then it shall be you feeling defeat.”

“Oh, I would not be concerned about my goblins, if I were you. I would be more concerned about what lies within you. I shall use that to defeat you.”

“If I learned anything in your labyrinth last time is was not only that nothing is as it seems, but that anything is possible! You have already lost, Jareth, and I shall enjoy beating you again.”

“Very well, you have thirteen hours, Sarah; enjoy the memories of your child for I shall enjoy the future with her.”

Terrified by what the veiled comment might mean, Sarah responded angrily.

“Keep your hands off of her, you bastard!”

“I would never consider anything else.”

A moment later Sarah was alone on the rise once again and she viewed the familiar scene with distaste. She had hoped to never see this place again and knew that the best chance that she had was to find her friends. Falling into an oubliette this time definitely meant certain death, because Jareth was certainly not going to send someone to show her back to the beginning. She was on her own until she found her companions.

_‘Here we go again,’_ she thought as she hurried down the hill towards the outer walls of the labyrinth after setting the timer on her watch.

She ran down the small hill, finding it much more difficult than she remembered without considering the fact that she was no longer fourteen years old. Ahead of her she could see the very spot where she had come upon Hoggle and where her first impression of the small man had been formed. His first words to her had been “Oh, it’s you!” and things seemed to have gone downhill from there. She passed that point and soon was standing near the outside wall where she began to look for an opening.

As she gazed back and forth down each side of the seemingly impossible to breach wall she remembered something that she had been told the last time that she had sought someone within this place.

That something wasn’t necessarily what it seemed to be in this place.

Right now she needed a door into the confusing world of Jareth and the goblins and she remembered the knowledge that the worm had imparted upon her when she sought Toby. She closed her eyes and thought long and hard about that time and when she opened them a very familiar door stood in front of her. It swung open ominously and she felt the hairs on the back of her neck seem to stand on end as she looked into the labyrinth once again.

She stepped through the portal and then stopped as she looked both ways to see the same apparently perpetual passage. There was a moment where she expected to see Hoggle next to her asking which way she intended to go, but she remained alone and she imagined that Jareth was watching her at that very moment. Remembering which way she had traveled before she turned in that direction and started to walk while watching the walls for openings. In the distance, the castle loomed over the labyrinth like a brooding overlord and she wondered just which of the windows that she could see had Emma behind it. There was no doubt in her mind that the girl was likely terrified out of her mind and Sarah couldn’t blame her, Jareth was a frightening person.

“I’m coming, Em! Just be as difficult for Jareth as you can be for me.”

The lane that she was in was just as difficult, if not more than; it had been when a fourteen year old Sarah had run down it in an attempt to find her brother. Fallen blocks and tree branches lay everywhere creating bottlenecks that she had to climb over in some instances. She was certain of the previous location of the blocks, gaps in the tops of the walls attested to that, but the prior position of the branches was a mystery as she could see no trees in the area. Openings in the walls that she had not seen the last time seemed to jump out at her as if to ask if she would choose them instead of the one that she sought.

Abruptly, things became much more familiar when she heard a tiny voice speak to her.

“Ello!”

She looked down at the wall to see a familiar worm looking up at her and she knelt to speak to the tiny creature.

“I guess that I’m back.”

“Back? What do you mean that you guess that you’re back? I don’t recall ever seeing you before!”

“You were here the last time that I was in this place.”

“Who? Me? I’ve never seen you before in my life!”

“But I met you here the last time.”

“Listen, lady, I don’t know you nor ‘ave I met you before,” her companion replied with a slight edge in his voice.

A sudden inspiration hit Sarah and she asked the tiny being another question.

“Is it possible that I met a relative of yours and just thought it was you?”

An impossibly large tear suddenly escaped the eye of the worm and she realized that she had hit a nerve.

“Did I meet your father, perhaps?”

A slow nod told her that she was correct in her thought.

“I’m sorry.”

“Thank you. What do you mean that you are back?”

“I was here several years ago when Jareth stole something from me and now he has done it again.”

“Did he take a baby or a child?”

“Yes, my daughter.”

“You may as well give up, lady. Jareth doesn’t give anything up easily.”

“There is no way that I am letting him keep my child!”

The worm recoiled slightly from the response that she delivered with edge in her voice.

“No offense intended, lady, I’m just repeating what I have heard. I don’t get out much, so I have to rely on what I hear when I hear it.”

“I beat him before when he took my brother, I can certainly beat him now that he has taken my daughter!”

“Oooh! You’re her! Everyone in the Underground has heard about you! They all know the story about how you beat Jareth and took back the baby. It will be an honor to help you beat him this time.”

“Well, I’ve done it before, but I will take any advice that you can offer.”

“Turn back then, and forget your daughter.”

Anger filled Sarah as the worm spoke and she rose from her kneeling position to look down at the creature.

“I told you that I’ll never forget my child. Your father was right because things aren’t always what they seem here and I certainly believe that you’re nowhere near as helpful as your father. Goodbye!”

Sarah turned and walked away from the worm as it blinked slowly and then turned to return to its home. Before vanishing into the hole in the wall that was its dwelling it spoke to itself as Sarah vanished down the passage opposite of the one that she had used before.

“Hmmph! Just wait until Jareth deals with you once and for all, lady. Things aren’t what they seem and you seem to be very sure of yourself. We’ll see how sure you are when you run into them!”

Cursing her decision to take the unfamiliar path Sarah turned around to retrace her steps only to find a wall blocking her. Frustration filled her as she remembered that the labyrinth often changed and she knew that she had been fortunate to have located the worm in the first place, or had she? Doubt filled her mind as she wondered if she had actually revisited the home of the worm or if she had been somewhere else.

She walked cautiously down winding path after winding path while also trying to keep her eyes on the castle. Sarah imagined that Emma was probably frightened, while at the same time being very curious about her surroundings. The possibility of the girl attempting to escape from her captivity was strong and her mother knew that any goblin that tried to stop her was in for a fight. Emma wasn’t afraid to throw a punch, the reports from the principal’s office at school proved that, and a goblin that encountered her was likely going to end up with a black eye or worse.

While she walked Sarah marveled at the fact that everything looked much the same as it had before. She also shuddered at the fact that it was also much different and she had no idea where she was. Anger at her decision to take another path clouded her decisions and she soon found that she had lost her sense of direction. A glance upwards to locate the castle proved useless as she realized that a thick fog had settled over the walls that blocked her path.

She stopped in the center of an intersection to try to get her bearings and then her heart froze as she heard the sound of movement. Goblins!

Ducking back into a small space she watched as several goblins, obviously looking for something, nervously poked about in crannies while they sought whatever it was they were trying to locate. She smiled grimly as she realized that it was likely she that they wanted to find and she knelt to pick up a small rock that she found lying on the ground at her feet. Smiling as she remembered the last time that she had done something like this Sarah hurled the rock, not at the goblins, but past them. A few moments later she heard the impact as it clattered along the stones that formed the floor of the passageway that she had just used.

“What was that?”

“I dunno, you tell me!”

“Well, you go look!”

“Why do I have to?”

“Because I’m bigger and I told you to!”

There were brief sounds of a scuffle and then a yelp that followed the sound of a foot impacting a backside. She watched as the afflicted goblin walked in the direction of the noise while also grumbling as he rubbed his sore seat. The sounds of rough laughter followed him as his companions watched his retreat.

“What do you think it was?

A thought seemed to cross their minds and their eyes widened.

“Maybe it was her!”

“You just sent him! He’ll get the reward that the king is going to give whoever finds her.”

“Not if we get there first!”

She watched as the remaining goblins turned and hurried down another path to intercept the one that had been sent to check out the noise. The sound of muffled grumbling and squeaks of pain as they ran into walls, weapons and each other followed them and Sarah picked up another rock. Instants later the rock was in flight and she heard it crash back to earth a second after she heard a shout of surprise and then a moan of pain. Clearly she had hit a mark that she had not intended to and she made haste to move away from the noise that the goblins were making as they searched for her.

A short set of stairs nearly caused her to stumble but she recovered her stride as she vaulted up them and farther from the patrol. A tree loomed in front of her and she dodged it as it seemed to try to remain in front of her. She paused as she found herself standing in a thick copse of trees, trees that looked very familiar and she turned to retreat only to find a stone wall blocking her path. Turning back to face the direction that she had been travelling she found a rather overgrown winding path that seemed to follow a stream. Having no other choice she began to pick her way down the path while also attempting to avoid the thick branches that seemed to be reaching out for her.

Although it was light outside, the thick canopy of the leaves above blocked out much of the sunlight and the fog seemed thicker than ever. Ghostly shapes that she hoped belonged to trees appeared though the haze and she was forced to slow her pace. Sarah was almost certain that the fog was a product of Jareth and his desire to see her fail and this reinforced her drive to save her child from certain imprisonment for life by the Goblin King.

The light ahead of her seemed to brighten as she approached and she quickened her pace to reach this hopeful sign. Behind her, somewhere, she knew that the goblins were searching in vain for her and likely becoming rather frustrated. She glanced down at the watch that she had set before entering the place that she had hoped never to see again. Her eyes widened as she realized that she had already been in the labyrinth for over an hour, less than twelve hours remaining before Emma was lost to her forever.

Hoggle woke from his sleep and looked around the room as he tried to determine what was different. Certainly Jareth hadn’t visited him, that hadn’t happened for a long time, so what was changed? The trees outside were abnormally silent, normally they were chattering constantly as the competed with the birds for the amount of noise. He rose from the bed and walked barefooted to his living room to coax the fire in his mantle to life before placing a small piece of wood on it.

Sarah walked around a tree and noticed a small, rather rundown house in a clearing. Smoke curled up from the crooked chimney and, as she crossed through a gate in the rudely built fence around the place the fog seemed to retreat, almost as though it knew that it was not welcome there.

She remembered nothing like this from the last time that she had visited the Underground and paused while she studied the house for a short time. Certainly someone lived there, the smoke told her that, and the house was rather quaint so perhaps the resident was someone that would be helpful, at least she hoped that they were. Meekly, she walked across the grass to approach the front door and finally stood in front of it. She took a deep breath and then knocked gently on the aged wooden barrier.

Hoggle was just sitting down to put on his shoes so that he could face another hopeless day in a dreary place that was ruled by a has-been king and his goblin flunkies. He wouldn’t have said any of this aloud, but he could think it to himself. He sat upright as the sound of polite knocking disturbed his tranquility and he rose to approach a door that hadn’t been knocked on for years. Jareth had never knocked before entering the home; he had simply walked in as he assumed that his title of Goblin King entitled him to do. These days, Hoggle would have actually welcomed the intrusion because it would have broken the monotony of the endless string of days.

Another knock sounded and he rose from the chair that he had sat down in to warily approach the door. He reached for the handle and took a deep breath before pulling the door open to reveal someone on his doorstep that he never would have imagined, although he had hoped it, for.

“Sarah?”

“Hoggle?”

The friends recovered from their shock and soon were hugging each other tightly.

“Hoggle, I’ve missed you so much! I know that I haven’t called on you, but I have missed you terribly.”

“Sarah, why are you here?”

“Jareth!”

“Oh, him! What’s he done this time?”

“My daughter, Emma, he has taken her! Now she’s in the castle and I have less than twelve hours to find her. Can you take me to Goblin City?”

“For you, Sarah, I can do anything. But we need some help and I know where to find it.”

“Ludo? Didymus?”

“We couldn’t do it without them. It will be like old times.”

“Not too much like old times, I hope.”

Hoggle chuckled as he returned to his chair to finish putting his shoes on while Sarah looked around the small room. Her eyes settled on the bracelet that she had given him so many years before in payment for escape from the trap that she had fallen into.

“You still have it.”

“I’ll never get rid of it, Sarah. It reminds me of my friend.”

Hoggle rose with a groan and then walked to his front door while Sarah watched him.

“Is this going to get you into trouble, Hoggle? I know that he couldn’t have been happy with you the last time this happened.”

“After the last time, Sarah, he threatened to tip me into the Bog of Eternal Stench, but never did. You changed something in him when you got your brother back. Maybe changed isn’t the right thing to say, more like you broke something in him. He let Ludo, Sir Didymus and me go last time, never mind all of his threats and surprised everyone. The goblins were all shaking in their boots after the battle and yet he just let them all be. They’re still scared of him, but they work for him just because they don’t know what else to do.”

“Do you still work for him?”

“Not like I used to, I used to spray the fairies but I gave that up. Now I just keep an eye on the walls and give a list of needed repairs to the goblins.”

“You gave up spraying the fairies?”

“They weren’t doing no harm, Jareth made me do it. I don’t know why, they only bite if you make them mad.”

Sarah thought back to the fairy that she had picked up after it had been sprayed and the painful bite that it had inflicted on her hand. The tiny creatures certainly had a way of making their displeasure known and she didn’t want to experience it again any time soon.

Hoggle stepped out of his home and Sarah was soon standing next to him as they prepared to set off down one of the many paths toward the home of Ludo.

“Is it very far to his home?”

“No, but we have to be on the lookout for goblin patrols. If they’re looking for you it ain’t a good thing.”

“I heard one of them say that he’s giving a reward for me.”

“That’s not good. To them a reward is something like a pretty rock or a get out of the dungeon ticket. It’s not much to you and me, but to a goblin it’s gold! We really have to watch out for the ones with the Nipper Sticks, those things hurt when they bite.”

Images of the small, armored goblins tormenting Ludo came to Sarah’s mind. The giant beast had been hanging upside down from a tree, obviously after stepping into a trap and the goblins had been making sport by tormenting him with the sticks. Simply a long stick to which a hairless creature with large teeth and a bad attitude clung, the items were something to be dreaded and she had no desire to be on the receiving end of one of them.

The path before them was another winding one that at times were parted by the sections of what had at one time been part of the labyrinth’s walls. They walked carefully around a section of wall and Sarah looked down to realize that Hoggle was holding up one finger in front of his mouth to caution her to silence. A glance in the direction that he was looking told her why.

Several reddish creatures capered about a campfire while they played catch with the head that one of them had thrown into the mix. Hoggle and Sarah hadn’t been noticed yet and they kept quiet in the hope that they wouldn’t be. They crept cautiously forward and were making good progress until a branch snapped under Sarah’s foot. She looked down at the broken wood and then at her companion with a stricken look on her face.

“Yaaahhh!”

The yell of the creature that had leaped into their path didn’t take them by surprise and it was not long before its companions had joined it. They gathered in a ring around the interlopers and somehow didn’t look as carefree as they had the last time that Sarah had seen them.

“Now little lady, we’re going to take off your head and throw it! You still owe us a free throw,” the creature that seemed to be the leader said menacingly as it advanced.

It was at that point that the friends did the only thing that they could and that was to run through the gap that the leader had created when he stepped forward.

“Leave us alone, I don’t have time for this,” Sarah yelled as they ran towards what they hoped was safety.

The flaming red creatures took pursuit and soon they were keeping pace with the fleeing pair, who could only run as fast as Hoggle was capable of.

“Don’t quit now, we haven’t had our chance at a replay,” one of the creatures shouted. “We’re keeping score you know and don’t like to lose.”

Hoggle and Sarah hurried down a path that they hoped would allow them to escape while, unknown to them, Jareth watched the proceedings through one of his crystal balls.

“I told you, Sarah, this time I intend to be merciless. This time I intend to humiliate you! This time, if you fail to get to my castle in time, I intend to turn your child, the dwarf, the beast and the little squire all into goblins forever. You were the prize I truly wanted; your daughter is merely a bonus. I have never forgiven you for the humiliation that I suffered the last time at your hands.”

Jareth, the Goblin King, sat back in his throne and kept a careful watch on the crystal in his hand lest he miss anything. Once the Fireys were done with the pair, Sarah and the dwarf would be handed over to him and then would be held in an oubliette until the thirteen hours had expired. Then he would have four new goblins as well as Sarah for his very own.

“So much trouble, Sarah, you have caused me so much trouble and soon you shall be repaid in full for all of the suffering and loneliness that I have endured because of you. Your daughter is exactly like you, Sarah, such a difficult creature. She has created no end of trouble already for my goblins and they cannot wait to have her join them, then she shall see things as they do.”

The lead Firey dangled on a tree branch and managed to snag Hoggle as he ran. The dwarf squealed in alarm as he was lifted off of his feet and into the air by the surprisingly strong creature. He fought mightily to attain release and Sarah was forced to turn back to help him as he called for aid.

“Sarah, help me!”

She turned in time to see him hauled into the tree and then out of sight. As she strained to keep her friend in view she failed to see the hands that reached out from under to bushes to grab her ankles, pull her off of her feet and then drag her into the very bushes that concealed the creatures. All that Sarah could do as she was dragged away back towards the fire was call out to another friend.

“Ludo, help!”

Emma looked up from the bed that she was sitting on as her mother’s voice came from somewhere. The girl truly just wanted to go home and soon. Although she had not been harmed in any way, the goblins frightened her and now she understood why her mother hadn’t wanted her to read the book. It wasn’t a story at all, it was painfully true. Everything that she had read was the truth, the goblins, the labyrinth, Jareth and the girl that had defeated him. That girl had been her mother and the baby that she had retrieved could only be her Uncle Toby. Jareth had told the teen that she wasn’t his target, that that honor had been reserved for her mother and that he had something special planned for her. The teen wasn’t certain what Jareth had meant by that, but it didn’t sound pleasant.

For their part, the goblins weren’t pleased when they were told to go to the room of the girl. They were frightened of her, and for good reason. One unlucky goblin guard had been forced to endure the attentions of one of their healers after the girl had grabbed his helmet and shoved it down so hard that it had taken the efforts of several of his mates to pull it back to something a little more comfortable. Another had experienced the misfortune of receiving a kick in the backside when he had made the mistake of turning away from her instead of backing away. Now his nose was badly swollen and his backside hurt, neither of which the healer could do anything about. To add insult to injury, all of his mates were giving him a very hard time about the whole thing because he had been bested by a child.

“I want to watch her turn into a goblin, that’s what the boss says he’s gonna do to her,” the goblin who was still trying to recover from a bent helmet and a headache announced while he stood on guard.

“I juss wana my noze t gt betr,” the other said as he rubbed his sore backside.

Emma rose and crossed the room to stand by the door and listen to the guards. Neither one of the guards frightened her which made her decide that it was time to have more fun with them. She stepped behind the door and then kicked over a large mirror that stood against the wall. The resulting crash alerted the goblins and they turned to look at the door with wide eyes.

“Go in there and check on her,” the one with the headache commanded.

“Why do me hav t go?”

“Cause I’m bigger and the boss put me in charge!”

While they were arguing Emma chose that moment to make her announcement.

“I’m going out the window, guards! I hope you enjoy dealing with Jareth after I escape!”

The goblins, forgetting the fact that they were several floors above the ground, reacted only to the word Jareth. The larger one reached down to fumble with his keys and finally managed to unlock the door before he and his companion entered the room, his companion shoved in first to take whatever punishment was dealt to them. They paused in the center of the room looking at the unbroken window with surprise and only turned towards the door that they had come through as the girl made her escape and slammed the door behind her. The sound of the key in the lock told the pair of guards that they had become the prisoners and that the girl that they had been assigned to watch was now on the loose.

Emma pulled the key out of the lock and raced towards a staircase that led downwards. The sound of guards ascending the stairs gave her a moment of anxiety until she noticed a bag of marbles that one of the guards had dropped as he raced into her room. The marbles were soon racing down the stairs and a short time later the guards were tumbling down the stairs as well with the sounds of armor crashing against stone echoing through the castle. The group landed at the bottom in a pile of moaning bruised flesh and dented metal.

The girl raced away the other direction knowing that the remaining guards would scurry towards the sound of the disturbance. Behind her she left mayhem as well as two guards who still stood looking at a locked door that they should have been guarding from the other side. The smaller one looked up at his companion as he summed up their situation with just a few words.

“We is in so much trouble.”

His companion could only nod his agreement.


	4. Chapter 4

Emma crept slowly through the shadows, which wasn’t hard in the badly lit corridors, dodging the goblins and trying to find an exit. The huge structure was frustrating the girl as when it seemed as though she was nearly out she would find a wall that seemed to have sprung up out of nowhere to block her. She doubted that the goblins or Jareth were even aware that she had managed to get past her guards and imagined that they were still trapped in the room that she had once occupied. The sound of someone approaching alerted her and she ducked back into a small alcove to watch as a goblin walked past her.

“Why do me have to guard her? Mean she is, me saw her kick my brudder in da seat and make him land on his snoz. All swelled up and ugly it is now.”

The guard wandered on past her, unaware that he had been seen and heard and that the girl was moving now to get farther from the room that she had left. As she hurried away from him she heard the continued whining and complaining continue until he was out of earshot. Emma knew that she had to hurry, once it was discovered that she had gotten away from the pair of goblins the whole castle would be looking for her. She arrived at an intersection and carefully looked down a corner towards the sound of voices.

Three goblins were walking towards her and she knew that they would see her soon unless she did something. The keys that she had taken from the goblins gave her an idea and she reached the nearly empty bag of marbles to pull three out. She hurled the marbles down the passage directly ahead of her before backing away. The marbles rattled off of a window and the goblins stopped in their tracks.

“Wut wuz dat?” A large voice asked.

“Me dunno,” came the reply from a smaller voice.

“Well, go ‘ave a looksee!”

“Why duz me ‘ave to?”

“Cuz me told you to.”

“Wut about him?” the smaller voice complained.

“No worry bout him, jus go looksee!”

The sound of armor scraping against something sounded and Emma watched as a small goblin crept slowly into view to cautiously peer down the corridor that the marbles had followed. When nothing could be seen he turned back to his still invisible companions to speak to them.

“Me don’t see nothing.”

She heard more armor slowly moving closer and it was not long before Emma could see all three goblins. They crept into view and then began to slowly move down the corridor towards the window while she took the chance to move forward and then race down the passage that they had just vacated. Behind her she heard the smaller goblin suddenly shout in discovery and her heart began to race with fear until she heard him speak in the distance.

“Me finds marbles!”

The sounds of a scuffle, obviously for the prizes, sounded through the corridors. Yells, squeaks, clanks and groans filled the air and she was glad to put it behind her before someone came to investigate the disturbance. Emma’s heart filled with joy as she saw a door next to a window appear. Through the window she could see the outside and she peered carefully through the portal to make certain that there wasn’t a guard standing outside it. Everything looked clear and she carefully grasped the handle to pull the door open. A moment later she was stepping out into the sunlight and a very strange village, the likes of which she had never even imagined.

Buildings, many of which looked as though they were about to fall over; and probably would have if not for crude repairs that kept them upright. She scurried across the large open area that the door opened onto hoping that she wouldn’t be spotted by some goblin that happened upon her while she made her escape from the castle.

The goblins in the room that she had escaped from had been discovered by the guard sent to relieve them. Cursing loudly at the fact that the goblins that were supposed to be guarding the girl were nowhere in sight, the guard removed the keys from his belt and then unlocked the door before opening it to check on the prisoner. He trembled in fright a bit as he peeked into the room and then straightened as he saw the pair of missing guards peeking up over the edge of the bed in the room.

“Wut is you guys doing there? Dat girl is supposed to be in here, not you!”

“She tricked us and locked the door so we can’t get out!”

“Where she go?”

“Me don’t know, me no see.”

“Da Boss is gonna be mad at yous! Might even dump yous into da bog!”

“Not da bog!” the smaller one wailed, “I don wanna stink forever!”

“You already does!”

A loud squabble swiftly erupted and Emma was quickly forgotten as the goblins screamed out their differences of opinion. The girl weaved her way through the large ragtag gathering of buildings until she finally reached a massive wall that there was no way to climb over. Clearly she needed a gate of some sort, or perhaps a tree that she could climb to ease over on a branch to a tree on the other side. She was in the process of searching for a route of escape when a voice behind her spoke.

“Who is you?”

She turned to see a large, rather unintelligent looking goblin standing in front of her with an extremely nasty looking sword in his hand. Thinking more quickly than her opponent obviously could she spoke to him.

“Me? My name isn’t important. What _is_ important is all of the pretty silver coins that I found just over there,” she said as she pointed towards a section of the wall and pulled several coins out of her pocket to show them to the goblin.

“Where you find them?” the goblin asked as his eyes focused on the coins in the girl’s hand.

“Right over there,” she answered as her eyes spotted a set of stairs that led to the top of the wall. “They were lying on the ground right next to the stairs. Do you think that they were lost by the king?”

Obviously, the goblin was a bit, but not much, more intelligent than Emma had given him credit for. He reached down and slipped his large hand into a pocket and then did his best to look worried.

“Me lost them, not da King! Give the pretties to me!”

“Oh, okay, here you go.”

The goblin stepped forward to accept the coins and then looked at the girl again.

“Who is you?”

“I told you, that’s not important. There are more pretties on the ground over there by the stairs! Don’t you want to go get them back?”

“You shows me where to find them!”

“Sure, come with me, I’ll take you right to them.”

The girl led the guard towards her escape route managing to move ahead of him just a bit while being careful not to look like she was running away. They arrived at the stairs where Emma stopped to point down at the ground.

“They’re right down there,” she announced while pointing at a spot in some tall grass.

“Where?”

“Look closer, they’re right there.”

The goblin stepped away from the girl to look down into the grass and the girl, once she was certain that the time was right, rushed forward to plant her foot on his backside and then give him a shove down the short hill that they were on. The goblin yelled in surprise as he rolled head over heels down the hill while the girl whirled and ran up the stairs where she began to search for a tree that had branches close enough that she could get to them. From there she hoped to climb down and then escape the city before the guards were all on her trail. A tree that stood next to the wall was visible a short way down the wall and she made haste for it, aware that the guard that she had tricked was now climbing the wall and running after her. She reached the tree and then, after tossing a few more coins onto the top of the wall, leaped onto the closest branch that she could see.

The goblin stopped to pick up the coins and ignored the fact that the girl had made her escape. Emma, grateful that she had climbed trees before, moved down through the branches before finally stepping onto the ground. The goblin that she had escaped from glared at her from the top of the wall as she turned and waved goodbye to him.

‘ _I am so glad that I had those coins in my pocket_ ,’ she thought as she vanished into the underbrush, ‘ _it was the best ninety-five cents that I ever spent._ ’

The goblin looked down at the coins that he had picked up from the wall before sliding them into his pocket. There was no need to let the king know about his treasure. As he walked away down the wall he wondered who the girl was and how she had gotten into the city, but it wasn’t important because he had gotten treasure maybe even enough to buy a bigger house.

Emma walked slowly through the trees, keeping a careful watch for goblins. She was out of coins and really didn’t want to be back in the castle as a prisoner. She did wonder how she was going to get home again, because she could tell that she certainly wasn’t close to it right now.

‘ _Why did I ever say what I did? Why did I ask the goblins to take me? Probably because I didn’t think that it would really happen, I mean, it was just a story in a book. I’ve read tons of books and nothing like this has ever happened before.’_

She made her way through the trees while the goblins in the castle shivered as they stood before Jareth.

“What do you mean that she escaped?”

“She tricked us, Boss, she broke da mirror and told us she wuz goin out da window.”

“How did she possibly lock you inside the room?”

“Da dummy left da keys in da door when we went in.”

The smaller goblin looked up at his taller companion before speaking in anger.

“I ain no dummy! You went in too! Why not you grab the keys?”

A short squabble initiated and Jareth reached up to place his head in his hands. Why couldn’t goblins be a bit more intelligent? Finally he had enough, which was lucky because the goblins were preparing for fisticuffs.

“Enough! I want her found and I mean immediately before you both end up guarding the entrance to the Bog of Eternal Stench!”

Alarmed by the threat issued by Jareth the goblins hurried to leave the throne room and make their way out of the castle. The ongoing argument that they were having left echoes in the corridors until it finally faded in the distance as a door slammed behind them.

Jareth looked up at the clock on his wall and frowned when he realized that only three hours had elapsed. The girl had created a problem because if she and her mother happened to meet the portal would reopen and they could return home. Sarah knew how to defeat him and clearly had no fear of him. She felt threatened by the fact that her daughter was in the Underground and would stop at nothing to retrieve the girl. In many ways, Sarah was a much more formidable opponent than she had been before when she had been her daughter’s age.

The Goblin King knew that the smartest thing that he could have possibly done was to return the child before Sarah confronted him in her kitchen. But she had pushed buttons that she shouldn’t have and this had forced him to do what he had done. He cursed himself for reacting in such an emotional way as his anger had gotten the better of him once again. Sarah wouldn’t make the same mistakes that she had so many years before, while he seemed destined to repeat his.

Very few of his crystal balls were his allies anymore. He had lost much of that power when she defeated him the last time. He was almost as blind as she was and far more helpless. Now he had to depend largely on the goblins and they weren’t much help. The only true help that he had were ones that no one thought much of and they had been told to keep an eye out for the mother of the girl. He didn’t doubt that she would try to link up with her friends from those years ago and all that he could do about that was to have his goblins and allies try to stop her.

He crossed to the entrance to his balcony and looked down on the sprawling goblin city. Once upon a time, if it had been given the proper care, it might have been grand. But it was far beyond grand, in fact, it was more than a little decrepit. The narrow streets were littered with debris, including some left over from the battle in which the rocks had managed to defeat his army. Rocks, he thought, who can be beaten by rocks? Well goblins could, that much was certain, and it had been a humiliating defeat.

It had taken weeks for the goblins to emerge from their hiding places in their homes after the rocks had withdrawn. The beast that had called them, the tiny squire which tended to the bridge in the bog and the dwarf which had once worked for him had all left the city to return to their homes and he hadn’t heard much from them since. Only Hoggle remained to do anything for him, and that had merely become a report to the maintenance goblins that made repairs to the walls of the labyrinth. He didn’t spray the fairies anymore and that had the potential to create a problem, one that Jareth didn’t want to consider.

A goblin walked slowly into his throne room, head hung, and then stood waiting to be spoken to.

“What is it that you want?”

“Boss, dere wuz a girl near duh wall. She tricked me an den booted me in duh rear. I fell down duh hill and she got over duh wall.”

“Why didn’t you follow her?”

The goblin thought as quickly as he could and then, when Jareth’s patience was nearly expired, finally spoke.

“I dun know how to climb trees, Boss.”

“Well, get out there and find her or report to the outpost in the Bog of Eternal Stench!”

The guard nearly fell all over himself at the shouted command and hurried to leave the room and the castle before he became something lower than a goblin. Jareth crossed the room, goblins scattering in his path, to flop down in his throne. Things just kept going from bad to worse today, first the girl had gotten out of her room and now it was apparent that she had escaped the city. She could very well find her mother and he actually hoped that she would, it would make things easier on him. Until then, he had a problem and he hoped that things would get better, because it certainly couldn’t get any worse.

Emma walked slowly through the forest while she kept an eye out for trouble. She had read enough of the book to know about the dangers that this place represented and had no desire to fall victim to them. She had just skirted a brook when she heard something that made her heart leap with hope and dread. A shout calling someone named Ludo for help.

“Mom?” Emma said to herself as she picked up her pace and called out herself. “Mom, is that you? It’s me, Emma!”

Only silence answered her and Emma turned to run in that direction only to collide with something very large, very furry and very much alive. She fell backwards in surprise, landing on her bottom, and looked up into dark brown eyes that gazed at her in puzzlement as the creature stood over her.

“Sawah?”

She sat back on the ground ignoring the dirt that was being attracted to the seat of her jeans while she looked up at the great beast that she had run into. It approached her slowly, its knuckles dragging the ground even though it stood almost eight feet tall and she scrambled backwards as she looked at the great teeth that the thing had. She watched in terror, her eyes wide as it approached her and imagined that soon it would be eating her. The girl screamed as the thing leaned down and reached out with one gigantic arm to grasp her hand in its own. She closed her eyes as she imagined the end and then stopped as the creature pulled her to her feet before releasing her and was repeating what it had said.

“Sawah? Sawah friend.”

Emma managed to open her eyes and look upward into the brown eyes of the creature that towered above her. Certainly there was no rage in the eyes in fact there was no sign of danger at all. The beast seemed to have a puzzled look on its countenance as it regarded her again before speaking.

“Sawah?”

The girl realized what the thing was saying and what it believed. It thought that she was her mother and she wondered if the creature had met her mother before. Well, obviously it had because how would it know her mother’s name. She shook her head in frustration before returning her attention to the beast that still stood before her.

“Sawah?”

“No, I’m not Sarah, I’m Emma. Sarah is my mother,” she finally replied.

“Not Sawah?”

“Emma,” she said slowly.”

“Emma?”

“Yes, my name is Emma. Did you know my mother? Did you know Sarah?”

“Sawah! Sawah friend! Emma friend?”

“Yes, my name is Emma and I’m a friend.”

“Emma friend!”

The creature advanced on her, not in a threatening manner, but the girl was afraid that if it happened to trip on the rough terrain that it might fall and land on her. Given its size the effect would not be pleasant and the girl backed away slightly while trying to appear that she wasn’t afraid.

“What’s your name?”

“Ludo,” the large beast replied.

“Ludo, have you seen Sarah lately?”

“Nooo,” the great beast with ginger colored fur answered sadly.

“She’s here, somewhere in this place, and I need to find her. Can you help me find Sarah, Ludo?”

“Ludo help Emma.”

“I heard her earlier and she was calling for you, Ludo. It sounded like she’s in trouble and needs your help. We need to find her if we can.”

The pair walked off in the direction that the voice had come from, unaware that they were being watched. The unseen owners of the eyes began to slowly follow the pair and had to pick up their pace as the girl and beast moved farther down the path that they were on.

Ludo was quite familiar with the forest that he was in and wasn’t happy about it. He had traveled these very paths with Sarah long ago and remembered falling. The fall had seemed to go on forever and had ended in the Bog of Eternal Stench, the place where Sarah had found him again and he had met Hoggle as well as his brother, Didymus.

His other friends, the rocks, had saved Sarah from the bog as well as providing them with a way across the horrid water without getting wet and smelly. They had also been of service during the battle in Goblin City where Sarah had gone on without him and the others to face Jareth on her own. Now he rarely called upon them, they didn’t give his lack of need much thought (as if they could), and was content to wander the wooded areas of the land in search of more friends. Today he had been fortunate as his new friend, Emma, looked very much like Sarah and nothing could have pleased him more. That is, unless he happened to get to see his long absent friend again.

The girl was very much like Sarah in appearance, but there were differences. Emma didn’t seem to be as gentle natured as Sarah had been, there was a coarseness about her that his old friend had lacked. If he understood the girl correctly she had said that Sarah was her mother and that gave him hope. What troubled him was the fact that the girl had said that it sounded like Sarah was in trouble and he would waste no effort to find his friend and render aid if necessary.

Emma slowed her pace and looked around the heavily wooded area. She was worried, the trees and brush were so dense that if her mother had fallen and hurt herself there was a very small chance that she could be found. Calling out to her was the best bet, but if the goblins were around they would hear her and come to take her back to that horrid castle once again. She paused to examine more closely some flowers unlike anything that she had ever seen before and was stunned when they abruptly launched from their stems, spread their wings and took flight in a dizzying flight away from her. The girl could only watch, entranced, as the tiny beings flitted away, scattering and chattering as they went

Something about their song grasped Emma and she found herself hurrying to follow them deeper into the forest. She followed a less well defined path and soon was moving farther from Ludo than the beast was comfortable with.

“Emma!” he called to the girl who even then was getting far away. Giving up on calling to her after two more tries and desperate to keep the girl in sight, the ginger colored creature left the main path and hurried after the daughter of his old friend.

Emma quickened her pace through the woods as the song called to her and she found it irresistible. The calls from Ludo didn’t register in her mind and she darted in pursuit of the creatures and their dizzying song. She watched as the small creatures vanished through a hole in a large tree ahead of her and moved desperately to catch up with them while Ludo wailed behind her. He had finally realized what the child of Sarah was following and it bothered him. Those who followed the creatures that Emma pursued were generally never seen again. The path that he was one seemed to close around him, as if to prevent him from catching the girl and pulling her to safety. Branches and vines seemed to reach out for him in a vain effort to slow his advance, but the great strength of Ludo stopped that from happening and he could see that he was making headway on catching up with the girl.

Abruptly, a large branch swung across his path and blocked his advance while the child seemed to speed up. Terrified at the thought of losing his new friend, Ludo did the only thing that he could, he wailed for the rocks.

Emma was nearly to the large hole in the tree when a large rock rolled past her and then bounced up to fill the gap before the girl could reach it. The tiny creatures, speeding ahead of the girl as they enjoyed their success, barely missed slamming headlong into the rock and braining themselves. Their song ended abruptly as they tried to avoid personal harm and Emma stopped in her tracks as they flew away. She looked around to see that she was well off of the path that she had been following with Ludo. How she had gotten where she was puzzled the girl and she watched as the great beast approached her while her eyes finally managed to focus again.

“Ludo? How did I get here? The last thing that I remember was that I was smelling some flowers and now I’m here. What happened to me?”

“Bad twee faiwies!” Ludo responded.

“Bad tree fairies? Well, let’s get back onto the path and find my mom.”

She stepped towards Ludo and he extended his paw to take her hand. An instant after her hand touched his and she stepped over a fallen tree branch the ground under them gave way and they found themselves tumbling downwards in a fall that seemed to take forever. When they finally landed Emma could only wrinkle her nose and Ludo responded the only way that he knew.

“Smell bad!”

Emma wasn’t certain if the beast was referring to the stench in the air or the very angry looking bunch of goblins that stood with lances pointed at them.


	5. Chapter 5

Sarah finally managed to get a better look at her assailant and was more or less relieved when she saw only the Fireys. While she doubted that they actually meant her much harm, the memories of her last encounter with them were coming back full force.

“We just want to have a good time!” _(Jim Henson Productions, Labyrinth 1985 Tri-Star)_ That was what she had been told by them when, lost and alone, she had stumbled upon them in the forest while searching for Ludo. They had mildly amused and terrified her, while at the same time taking her mind off of one set of troubles and introducing another.

The group of flame colored creatures, which were capable of removing their own body parts without harming themselves, was dancing around a fire once again. They seemed only interested in frivolity while at the same time were conscious about keeping Hoggle and her within their circle, offering no chance of escape. They laughed and sang among themselves while also playing a very strange version of volleyball with the head of one of their number, bumping it with their wrists back and forth over a low hanging branch. Occasionally the gaping mouth of the head would manage to seize one of the arms with what were obviously sharp teeth, eliciting a howl from the owner of the arm.

Hoggle, not normally frightened of the creatures, looked from one of them to another as the Fireys talked about throwing the heads of both Sarah and him. He really didn’t want his head thrown, especially if that meant having to have it separated from his body like theirs were. Their heads might have been made to do such things but his was firmly attached to his neck and he wanted it to stay that way.

Sarah was thinking much the same way as she watched one of the creatures abruptly bump the head a bit too far and it sailed out of sight before landing with a thump in the underbrush where it began to call for help.

“Hey guys, I’m over here! There are bugs and worms and crawly things here, maybe they want to have a good time too!” The words ended with the laughter so common to the creatures and his fellows hurried to run in that direction. Their game of head volleyball was not over and the score was tied firmly, although neither Sarah nor Hoggle had heard any called aloud by the players.

Hoggle had barely begun to move out of the circle that he had been confined in when one of the creatures leapt from the brush to block his path.

“The game’s not over! Now we want _you_ to play!”

The creature leapt towards Hoggle to seize his head and begin to tug on it with the intention of removing it from his shoulders. The dwarf howled in pain and screamed for her help as the creature grabbed his ears in an attempt to use them to twist his head from his neck. Sarah, seeing that her friend was in jeopardy of becoming a permanent ball in the game, rushed forward to knock the Firey from atop her friend.

“Foul! I want a referee, illegal contact! Put her on the bench!”

The creature rose from the ground while Hoggle scrambled away and Sarah rushed forward to employ what she had learned in P.E. class while in school and she had watched her daughter do in school matches, she used her wrists to bump the head of the Firey.

“Whooaaaa!” the head wailed as it flew much farther than the other one had and it vanished into the brush a good distance away while the body stumbled around blindly. “I need some help boys!”

The other creatures, who were still involved in the search for the first head, which was having a wonderful time playing warmer or colder, were torn between finding their ball or running to the aid of their other companion. The head, seeing an opportunity when a scrawny leg appeared in biting distance, seized the leg of one of his friends as it made a rather credible imitation of a bulldog which had a bone and didn’t want to lose it.

Sarah, pleased with her handiwork, took the moment during the confusion to help her friend to his feet and then give him one bit of advice.

“Run!”

The dwarf raced of in one direction and the woman followed him, both quite conscious of the fact that the Fireys would soon be in pursuit. They could move through the trees as well as monkeys could and had no fear of injury. She was in their realm and had to play more or less by their rules, although she had no intention of letting them remove her head. She definitely had no intention of letting it become a ball in one of their wild games.

Hoggle was making what, for him, was respectable speed as he ran from the scene and Sarah was starting to feel relief until the dwarf fell forward as a hand reached out from the underbrush and tripped him. Her friend fell forward to land on his face before being pulled into the brush and Sarah came to a dead halt as she turned to face the Fireys who were nearly upon her.

“You want a game, do you? Fine, I’ll play. What is it? Do you want to play volleyball again?”

The creatures seemed to be confused by her actions and words, but recovered quickly and all were soon around her again, one of them holding on to a wriggling Hoggle.

“We wanna play bump ball again. But you have to follow the rules, Lady!”

“Fine, I’ll play! If I win we get to go free and you leave us alone.”

“If we win, we get to throw your heads.”

“Sarah?”

“Yes, Hoggle,” she answered as she knelt before him and readied herself for the match.

“Do you know what you’re doing?”

“I certainly hope so.”

She rose from her position to face her opponents and was stunned to see four of them arrayed against her.

“Wait a minute,” she growled, “you never told me that it would be four against one. It’s not fair!”

“We never said it would be fair, we’re just here to have a good time. Besides, you have two because he has to play too.”

“He can’t play, you hurt him.”

The Fireys looked at Hoggle and then nodded, they might have been carefree but they did have sympathy. Their hesitation gave Sarah an idea.

“Since you have four we have to play it this way. If one of the heads goes out of play, that player has to sit down and wait until the game is over.”

The Fireys went into a huddle, clearly suspicious of the woman having seen her bump one of their friends heads a great distance. Occasionally, one of them would look over his shoulder at her before returning to the huddle and the whispers that were going on. They finally returned to the playing area and the one that Sarah assumed was the leader stepped forward to talk to her.

“We agree to your rules, Lady, but if you bump one of our head into the brush you lose and we get to throw your head and his!”

Hoggle whimpered as Sarah quietly nodded and then took her place on her side of the tree branch while one of the Fireys surrendered his head for the game and his body was led to the tree branch that they were using as a bench.

The head was thrown aloft and Sarah moved to bump it back over the branch, mindful of the snapping teeth that it possessed. A moment later it was going back over the limb, bouncing off of a branch above it and throwing it off of its trajectory. As a result, the head got a lump, the Firey that moved to bump it got bit and the head hit the ground. The rather dazed head was picked up and returned to its owner while the creature that was nursing his bit arm surrendered its head and moved to the bench.

‘ _Two down, three to go,’_ she thought to herself.

The second head was sent aloft by the Firey chief and soon sailing back over the branch courtesy of Sarah. The wailing head was sent back by the Fireys to collide with the same branch that had thumped the first and Sarah was just able to get under it to send it back to its chums. Seeing that it was going to drop straight down the chief and one of his friends ran forward to stop it and collided head on, sending arms flying in all directions and the head to bounce off of them and to the ground. The dizzy head was lifted back onto the shoulders that it had left while the two creatures that had collided walked back to sit down while shaking their heads in an attempt to clear them.

_‘That is going to leave a mark,’_ she thought with a wry grin.

The lone Firey lifted the head of the chief off of his shoulders and then sent it hurtling towards her as it screamed. She got underneath it and sent it back almost as hard towards her opponent. He sent it back at her and she barely managed to return it, given the speed that it was traveling and the teeth that it bore. The Firey moved back to bump it once again and sent it back to the woman, misjudging the distance and sending it headlong into the branch. Sarah managed to get close enough to spike it downwards and it hit the ground with a thump and a howl.

“Ow! That hurt!”

Sarah watched as the defeated Firey stepped forward to pick up the head and return it to its owner. She stepped towards the Firey and reached out to shake its hand. It looked at her in confusion until she spoke.

“Good game, I had lots of fun! Can we go now?”

The creature nodded its head (which was still on its shoulders) and she rushed to take the hand of Hoggle and hurry away from the confused group. Sarah now felt grateful for all of the classes in high school where she had been forced to endure playing volleyball and the times that she had sat in the bleachers to watch her daughter play in a school match. The Fireys might be able to survive removing their heads and then reattaching them, but she and Hoggle could not.

The pair walked on along the path, finding that it was nowhere near the wall that had led to her escape from the Fireys before. Not that they really wanted to go up that wall, the last time that they had been on it they had ended up nearly tumbling into the Bog of Eternal Stench.

“Hoggle, you never told me but why did we end up in the Bog of Eternal Stench the last time I was here.”

“You kissed me.”

“We ended up there because I kissed you?”

“Yeah, Jareth warned me that if you ever kissed me that he would turn me into a prince.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad.”

“He was going to turn me into a Prince of the Land of Stench _(Jim Henson Productions, Labyrinth 1985 Tri-Star)_!”

“Oh.”

“That was right after he gave me that peach.”

Memories of the peach, the bite that she had taken from it, the world spinning and then a grand ballroom filled Sarah’s mind as yet more thoughts from yesterday filled her mind. They had crept out of the corner that she had exiled them to and now were being dusted off once again.

“Hoggle?”

“Yes, Sarah.”

“This place is so different from the last time that I was here. Nothing is the same, except for you, of course.”

“I’m different too, Sarah. You see,” he said as he stopped, “after you left the last time Jareth just kind of wilted. It was almost like watching a flower that has been left out in the sun too long with no water. Before you came, he didn’t mind when the goblins took another baby, it was just one more goblin for him to push around. Then you got your brother back and his army spent days hiding in their houses and he just sat in his throne room brooding. Everyone thought that, once he came out of it, he’d go on a rampage but he didn’t. He just sat and thought and finally told the goblins not to take any more babies unless he told them to.”

“Then he told them to take my daughter?”

“Yes, Sarah, he told them to take your daughter, but he doesn’t want her. He wants you.”

“Of course, it all makes sense now. He didn’t want my brother back then, did he?”

“At first, yes, he wanted another goblin. Then he met you and you gave him a good kick in the seat. You impressed him, Sarah, and he has never forgotten about you. He wants you back, forever.”

The last word struck a chord in her mind and she remembered something that she had dreamt one night or was it possible that it not been a dream at all but an intrusion by the Goblin King.

“He said that he would be my slave if I only let him rule me.”

“Yes. He never had any power over you until he took your brother. He has that power again now that he has your daughter.”

“He doesn’t know Emma; she’ll give him a taste of what I did only worse. Emma never has liked authority and it got worse without her father around. He left when she was small and she never really got to know him well before he walked out of her life. She doesn’t even get something for her birthday from him anymore, not even a phone call.”

None of this made any sense to Hoggle, he had no clue what a birthday was much less a phone call, but it didn’t sound good as far as he was concerned. It did sound like the girl was as lonely as he was, even though her mother was still present.

“How have you been, Sarah?”

The question, asked with sincerity, took her by surprise and she looked at him with sadness in her eyes. Immediately he knew that he had struck a nerve that was still raw and bleeding and he wished that he hadn’t spoken.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, Sarah. It’s none of my business anyway.”

“Oh, Hoggle, it was all so difficult after I left here last time. My father and stepmother didn’t even realize that anything had happened and my brother grew up with no memory at all of what had gone on. To him it was all just some vague dream that made no sense and I made certain not to correct him when he mentioned it. Eventually all of what we went through just faded away for him and then I tried to forget too.”

“You tried to forget us, too?”

“Not you and the others, Hoggle, but what happened here the last time. I tried to put it all in the back of my mind and forget about it. One day I made the mistake of talking about it in front of my husband and he didn’t take it well. He thought that I had lost my mind and walked out of my life, he didn’t even think about his child.”

Not much of what she was saying made any sense to him, but he nodded his head as if he understood. The trail ahead of them seemed to stretch on and he knew that she had to be under the same time constraints that she had been before.

“Maybe we should go, if Jareth is anything, he’s a stickler about keeping time. You don’t want to get to the end of the clock without finding your daughter, unless you want to cuddle a goblin.”

The idea gave Sarah a start and they hurried on down the path which they hoped would lead them to Emma and a way out of the Underground.

“Sarah, you’ve used five of your hours, **”** Jareth’s voice suddenly announced from somewhere, “in only eight hours your daughter will be mine forever. Do you still think that it’s a piece of cake? You had better find her before time is up!”

Sarah stopped short as she looked up at the sky and then she looked back down at Hoggle, the tears in her eyes apparent.

“I can’t lose her, Hoggle, she’s the most important thing that I’ve ever done.”

They moved on down the path and soon reached a large lake that Hoggle had never seen before, but knew enough about to avoid.

“Sarah, we have to get around this lake and fast. Whatever you do, whatever you hear, don’t look at it. If you do, you’ll never look away from it again. It’s going to try to trick you; it may even sound like Emma or someone else that you care about. There’s a path around it and then away from it on the other side.”

“Okay. Let’s go.”

“Just keep your eyes on the trail ahead of us because if we ever lose it once we’re on it we’ll never see it again.”

Sarah could feel herself trembling as she took the first step onto the gleaming path that appeared before them. It seemed that, as they took a step, more of the path was revealed to them and she willed herself to keep her eyes on it while gripping the hand of her friend tightly. He was trembling too.

Hoggle did his best to also keep his eyes on the path before them while also recoiling at what he was seeing in each of the stones before them. Roiling mists filled with the faces of the evil goblins that had once roamed this land, back when his grandparents had lived in the very home that he did. His grandfather had been killed by one of them and his grandmother had never recovered from the loss. She had done her best to live out her life but had slowly faded until only the shell of what had been a happy, laughing person remained.

“Hoggle, come to me, boy! Come to your Grampa!”

The voice from his childhood startled him and Hoggle started to turn towards the lake, only to be stopped by his own will and memories.

“NO! It’s not you, your dead! I saw them bury you.”

“Don’t you talk to me that way, Hoggle! Come to me right now or you’re going to get a switching.”

“Go away! You’re not real, just go away!”

Sarah looked down at her companion while also trying to watch the path. Clearly the lake was talking to Hoggle and she wondered when it would be her time. She needn’t have wondered.

“Sarah, Sarah, darling, it’s your mother!”

“Mom?” she said aloud as she started to turn towards the lake, but the hand of her friend kept her attention.

“Sarah darling, I have missed you so much! Please come to me, I’m right here, next to the path.”

Sarah attempted to pull free of the grasp on her hand and found that she couldn’t. Something was hanging on to her; she looked down at her companion and gasped as she saw something short and abhorrent hanging onto her with a claw-like hand. It gazed up at her with wild, frightening eyes and she pulled harder to get away from its presence.

“Sarah, you need to come to me! I have waited so long for you. Please darling, don’t make me wait any longer.”

Hoggle was struggling against whatever it was that was holding on to him and he looked at his arm to see a large paw grasping it. A glance upward revealed the grinning face of one of the evil goblins like the one that had killed his grandfather. Terrified out of his mind, the dwarf lashed out with his foot and kicked at the creature that held him captive.

Sarah winced at the pain caused by the kick to her shin and finally pulled free of the thing that held her just as another kick brought her to her senses and she was seeing Hoggle again. Clearly he was still under the spell of the lake for he continued to kick at her and try to pull free. She was in a panic, for her hand was getting slick with sweat and he was beginning to pull his own from her grasp. If her friend managed to pull free of her and run away from her she would likely never seem him again, if what he had told her about the lake was accurate.

“Hoggle!” Sarah cried out as he tried to pull away from her with renewed ferocity.

“Let go of me!” Hoggle cried out as the creature held on to him and opened its mouth as if in preparation to devour him. He lashed out again with his foot in an effort to free himself and very nearly succeeded in landing on his backside when his other foot went from under him and he started to fall. He knew if that happened that he would be helpless before the teeth of the creature and panicked when it reached for him with its other hand. This was the end, he knew, for when one of them managed to get a hold of you with both hands you didn’t get free. They would find his bones scattered along this wooded path and all memory of him would fade while the forest would reclaim his home and belongings.

Sarah did the best that she could to prevent her friend from falling to the ground while also heeding his words about keeping her eyes on the path. Her hands were dreadfully slick with sweat and the small man was beginning to slip away from her. He did that she knew that she would never get ahold of him again. Tears ran down her cheeks while her friend fought against her grasp and the lake did its best to lure her into its eternal hold. Abruptly what she had been fighting against happened and Hoggle managed to free himself from her grasp.

Hoggle managed to pull free of the thing that held him captive and fell backwards to hurry back to his feet before darting away from his friend and into the dense trees that grew next to the path.

“Hoggle!” she screamed after him only to see him vanish into the darkness under the trees and the open space that he had used to escape from her close behind him. She couldn’t pursue him that much was obvious, the trees had claimed him and Sarah did the only thing that she could think of doing. She sat down in the middle of the path and cried for the loss of her friend.

Finally she rose and walked on down the path until the lake was behind her and the trees shuffled together to block her sight of the menace. Hoping to see Hoggle, she turned and carefully scanned the area around her. The small man did not reveal himself and she finally moved on down the path before her, her heart and spirit sinking as she walked. He had proven to be much more of a friend than she had thought he was when she had first met him all of those years before and now he was lost to her.

“Hoggle! Hoggle! Where are you?”

There was no answer to her summons and she finally moved on, mindful of the time constraints that she was under. Her friend was gone, she couldn’t and wasn’t about to lose her daughter. Her search for Emma was the only thing important now although if she found him and had the chance she certainly wasn’t going to pass up on the opportunity to help her friend.

Hoggle’s mind cleared and he looked around the area that surrounded him. Sarah was nowhere in sight and he was definitely not on the path, which meant that he was in a terrible amount of trouble. There were things in this part of the Underground, things that were unspeakable and did terrible things to those who trespassed on their territory. Somehow he had gotten here and his only hope was to find a way out of this part of the forest. Then perhaps, he could find Sarah and help her in her search for her daughter.

He started down the narrow path before him, mindful of the fact that the forest was totally silent except for the sounds that his footsteps were making. Every rustle of leaves or crack of a twig under his feet threatened to betray him to the ones that lived here and he wondered just how long it would be before one of them became aware of his presence in their realm and came seeking an easy meal. He hurried along as quietly as he could, while at the same time picking up a thick branch that he had found along the path for use as a weapon.

The small man still had the memories of the Fireys in his mind and those strange creatures were among the friendlier ones here. At least they didn’t want to eat those who wandered into their forest; they just wanted to play their insane games, not realizing that not everyone could take their heads off of their shoulders safely. He walked on down the darker, and much less friendly appearing path, while trying to find his way back to his friend and also avoid becoming lunch for something unpleasant. While he walked he was quite unaware that his presence had been noted and that he was now being tracked through the underbrush by something that moved far more quickly and quietly than he could.

Sarah walked on through the trees, pausing occasionally to duck behind a tree when a goblin patrol got too close to her. She kept out of sight as best she could and wondered how Hoggle was doing. Surely she would run across him sooner or later and then they could link up again to double their efforts to find her child.

_‘Where are you, Em? We’re running out of time and I couldn’t bear it if he turned you into a goblin! I doubt that you would be as pretty a goblin as you are a girl! Even so, I wouldn’t have a problem loving you.’_

Sarah moved on down the path that she was on, hoping that it wasn’t all in vain, while Hoggle searched for her and Jareth watched the thirteen hour clock that hung on the wall of his throne room as its hands showed the progression of time.

She finally stepped out of the tree line and gave a short squeak of alarm when a trio of goblin soldiers stepped out in front of her with their lances pointed in her direction and one, obviously the leader, spoke.

“Give up, Lady, we’s got you’s surrounded! You’s goin to da castle and da Boss!”

“I thought da Boss told us to dump her in da Bog of Stench,” one of the smaller goblins said as his superior advanced on her with a rope in his hand.

“Does you wants to go there?”

“Well, no,” the smaller goblin said as he aimed a kick at the dirt on the ground (and missed), “but me no wanna have to live there either when da Boss gets mad cause we didn’t do what he told us to! You knows what he did to da last goblins what didn’t do what he said. Dey is havin to live in da Bog of Stench.”

“But we caught da one dat he wants us to catch! Jareth is gonna be awful happy to see her.”

“Or awful mad at da goblins what didn’t do what he said,” the smaller goblin countered. “If he gets mad at us I’m gonna tell him dat I said dat we should have done what he said an you wouldn’t listen!”

“Oh, go chase fairies, dat’s all dat you’re good for! Even dey kick your backside when yous catches dem.”

The here to for silent third goblin, who had been enjoying listening to the quarrel, laughed at this last comment and both the leader and the smaller goblin turned to fix him with glares. Obviously not very intelligent, the goblin stifled the laughter and stood quietly once again while his leader tied Sarah’s wrists with the rope that he had held in his hands.

“Let’s go!”

Sarah could only follow the goblin as they began to walk across the clear area towards the castle that was vaguely visible in the distance.

_‘All that I can hope for is for something to either scare them off or be more important than I am to Jareth.”_

The only answer to her thoughts was a rather forceful tug at the rope that she was being led by.


	6. Chapter 6

“Uh, hi!” Emma finally managed to say to the goblins when she finally recovered enough breath to speak.

“What is yous doin here?”

The girl looked at the goblin that had spoken and understood that he was apparently in charge of the group.

“Well,” she answered before hesitating while she tried to think of a way out of the situation. “You see it’s like this, my friend and I fell down a hole and ended up here in this place. So, I guess that I have to say that we’re lost.”

“But why is you here?”

“I certainly didn’t come here on purpose,” the girl answered as she tried to breath without gagging. “What is this terrible place?”

“Dis?” the goblin said as he forgot about his lance and spread his arms wide to demonstrate what he was talking about. “Dis is da Bog of Eternal Stench! Dis is da place where da Boss sends trouble makers what made him mad!”

“Why does it smell so bad?”

“No one knows, it just does. Don’t get any of it on yous, cause if yous does yous gonna stink forever! Don’t matter how many baths yous takes, yous gonna stink!”

“Is there any way out of here? I really need to find my mother and leave.”

“Dere is one way out, but yous my prisoner and me not gonna let yous go! Da Boss might forget about me stickin him in da backside with my poker if I gives you to him.”

“You stuck Jareth in the backside with your spear?”

“Yep,” the goblin answered mournfully, “not do it on purpose. Me tripped and fell and da Boss was in da way and youch. He got really mad and den sent me here with dese guys. He said dat he had a job for me and dat it was important, but he was fibbin.”

“But I can’t go there, I only have a few more hours before I become a goblin and there is no way that I want to do that!” Emma announced, forgetting that she was talking to goblins.

“And what does be wrong with bein a goblin?” the leader asked with narrowed eyes as he leaned towards her menacingly.

“Oh, nothing,” Emma answered as she realized that she had just offended the creature. “I just prefer being what I am.”

“And what is you? Him,” the goblin said as he pointed at Ludo, “I seen before, but yous is a strange one. What is you?”

“I’m a girl.”

“Girl? What is a girl?”

“Me! I’m a girl!”

“Yous better change into a goblin, we is better lookin that yous is.”

“I beg your pardon! There is no reason to be rude, besides have you ever seen what you look like? You’re actually rather frightening.”

“Fibber, my ma always says I is da best lookin goblin the da realm,” the goblin answered, ignoring the sniggers of his companions at her comment.

Emma remembered the mirror that she had in her pocket and then thought of an idea.

“Are you certain? Have you ever seen yourself before?”

“I sees my arm all da time.”

“Yes, you do, but have you ever seen your face?”

“Well, no, how does me see my face?”

“I can show you if you want. It’s magic!”

“Yous can’t do magic, only da Boss can do that.”

“But I can and I can prove it.”

“Den do it!”

The goblins watched as she reached back to pull the small mirror out of her back pocket and then opened it. She smiled at her reflection and then knelt in front of the goblin while she mumbled some words that came into her mind.

“French fries, cheeseburgers and a glass of pop, show this goblin his face. When I turn it wave to yourself.”

She turned the mirror towards the goblin, he waved his arm and then squealed in alarm when the thing reflected in the mirror did the same. He dropped his lance and, turning on his heel, raced away. A loud squeal and splash announced that he had quite forgotten his surroundings, but Emma was busy showing the other goblins their reflections. They too dropped their lances and then raced away as she chanted more words.

“Bubble gum, cell phones and my boyfriend, run while you can or soon it will end.”

The goblins scattered and fled in terror, their lances lying on the ground where they had fallen, and their escape punctuated with numerous splashes as they too forgot where they were.

Emma and Ludo watched as they fled and winced as each took an unexpected bath in the horrid water.

“Ludo, let’s go before they think about us again.”

“Smell bad!”

“Yeah, it does, let’s go.”

They walked carefully along the bank of the body of bubbling water and it was not long before Ludo spotted something that he had seen many times before. His brown eyes brightened and his countenance lifted as he pointed ahead of them and spoke.

“Ludo’s brother!”

Emma stopped short and looked ahead to see the remains of an old bridge next to a large tree. A narrow section of the bog was bridged by a number of large stones that projected from the surface of the water. As they approached the tree, Ludo called out to someone and it was not long before a small dog-like creature bounded out of cover to stand in front of them.”

“Hold! No one may pass without my permission!” _(Jim Henson Productions, Labyrinth, 1985, Tri-Star)_

“Brother!”

“Sir Ludo? Sir Ludo! My valiant knight, what brings you to my humble home?”

“Smell bad!”

“You always say that, but what do you speak of?”

It was then that Sir Didymus noticed Emma and his one eye that was not covered by a patch opened wide in recognition.

“Sarah?”

Emma smiled at the apparent confusion of the creature. She was used to this, more than one of her mother’s friends had told her that she looked like her mother.

“Sarah is my mother,” she managed to reply while trying to breath. “My name is Emma.”

“Fair Maiden,” the creature answered as he bowed low to her, “you look much like your mother. Please forgive my mistake, I meant no insult.”

“It’s okay, I understand,” she answered with a smile, “it happens all the time.”

"But, if you are here, Fair Maiden, where is thy mother?”

“Trying to find me, I hope.”

“Does she not know where you are?”

“No,” the girl answered with slight annoyance, “if she did, I wouldn’t be hoping that she is trying to find me.”

“Then perhaps we should find her!”

“Well, I suppose that you’re right, but Mom always told me that if I got lost to stay right where I was and she would find me.”

“We could do that, I would most like to see Miss Sarah again.”

Emma took a breath and made a face before changing her mind about staying put.

“Maybe it would be better to look for her. Surely she would have come here already if she was looking for me.”

“Very well,” the tiny squire turned from the girl and then called out to someone that she hadn’t yet seen. “Ambrosius!”

A large dog, which quite resembled the one that Emma had seen in old pictures of her mother, bounded into view and then stopped next to the strange creature that had summoned it. The girl smiled with mild amusement as she saw that it had what appeared to be a saddle blanket covered with strange heraldry and a saddle on its back. It barked sharply as the small knight leapt onto the saddle and then they began on their way down a short path which led to the bridge made out of rocks which projected from the putrid smelling water.

Emma remembered what the goblin had said about the bog, don’t get any of the water on you or you’ll stink forever. She watched as the strange horse and rider crossed the bridge and then carefully crossed herself. Ludo made his own way across, surprising the girl with his surefootedness. Once they were safely on the other side they began to move down the trail and only paused for a moment when a shouted command reached their ears.

“Come back or yous is gonna get tossed into the Bog of Eternal Stench.”

“We’re already in the Bog of Eternal Stench,” she yelled back.

The members of the goblin patrol, all of whom were still dripping from the unexpected dunking that they had endured, looked around at each other before grumbling and then walking away with their heads hung. They had smelled bad before the accidental dip in the water, and now they would smell positively ghastly for the rest of their lives. Not that it mattered for most of them as far as their mates were concerned.

Emma followed Sir Didymus and Ambrosius while they made their way through the dank forest that bordered the bog. Absolutely everything exuded a stink and the girl knew that she would be more than ready for a shower once she got home.

_‘I’ll probably have to burn these clothes just to get rid of the smell, because washing them probably won’t do much good,’_ Emma thought as she remembered a time when her mother had burned leaves from the yard and the smell of the smoke seemed to have clung to her clothing until they were washed but she doubted that washing them would help this time.

As she walked, the girl was painfully aware of the passage of time, she knew that probably she had around six and a half hours left before she became a goblin. The thought of becoming one of the grotesque creatures brought tears to her eyes. She had no desire to spend the rest of her life as something to be avoided. Would her mother even want her around if the worst happened? Or would she be destined to live within the shadows, shunned by her friends and everyone else?

Emma finally succumbed to her sorrow and sat down on a fallen tree branch to cry. Ludo paused next to her while Ambrosius turned around and trotted back to her.

“Fear not, Fair Maiden, we shall get you to your mother, somehow.” _(Based on Jim Henson Productions, Labyrinth, 1985, Tri-Star)_

Emma heard the words of encouragement from the small squire and nodded numbly while Ludo stepped forward to place one large paw on her shoulder in an attempt to comfort her.

“Emma sad,” he moaned quietly.

The girl raised her head and looked up at the great beast which towered over her while lifting her arm to place her hand on that of Ludo. She reached up with her other hand to wipe at the tears that streaked her face and then rose from where she had been seated before looking at her friends.

“We need to get moving, I don’t want to end up as a goblin.”

The trio walked on, quite aware of the many eyes that were certainly watching them. Many were probably just curious about them while others meant no good will towards the trio. Some of the latter slowly made their way through the undergrowth as they trailed the group of friends. Muffled voices betrayed their locations although they were careful not to announce their presence to those that they followed.

Ludo, although somewhat dim-minded by the standards of some, was the first to see the menace that had nearly claimed the girl earlier. Several bushes in their paths were covered with the brilliant flower-like appendages that were, in fact, fairies that were intent on trapping unsuspecting travelers with their hypnotic appearance and flight. More than one traveler had fallen to them, the end result being a pile of bones that had been stripped clean once the fairies had finished with them. Emma had been fortunate, had Ludo not interfered she would have suffered that fate, for none who were alone were ever able to escape the plots of the small tree sprites.

He rushed forward with a roar, sending the fairies into frantic flight and he chased them a short distance before breaking off the pursuit to return to his companions. Emma and Didymus looked up at him while he announced his success.

“Bad twee faiwies not hurt Emma!”

The group continued on, aware that they were likely being followed by something and watched by Jareth. While Emma found it probable that the Goblin King knew about her escape from his castle, she found it odd that there had been no goblin patrols searching for her. The patrol that she and Ludo had encountered in the Bog of Eternal Stench had stumbled upon her after she and Ludo had tumbled into the area. She was just grateful that they had not landed in the evil smelling water. As she thought about it she suddenly came to a stop, her eyes wide and a hand up over her mouth while her companions halted to try to determine what had happened.

“Fair Maiden, is something wrong?”

“Oh, no, I just thought of something.”

“What is it, Fair Maiden?”

“What if the reason that we haven’t seen goblin patrols out looking for me is that they are out looking for my mother? What if that was Jareth’s plan all along, he wants my mother. If he captures her, then she can’t find me in time and I get turned into a goblin.”

“Then we must find her before that happens!”

“Sir Didymus, where is the castle?”

“It lies yonder off in that direction, beyond the gates to the Goblin City.”

“I never wanted to see that place again, but I’m afraid that there’s no other way. We have to go to the Goblin City and catch up with her there. Even if they don’t have her, that’s where she will go to find me. How could I have been so stupid? I was already there, in the castle, and I could have met her there without having to go through all of this. We need to go now, we’re wasting time.”

The group hurried on down the path, unaware of the group that was following them and preparing something unpleasant for the girl and her friends. Emma turned her attention in the direction that Didymus had indicated and could just see the castle in the distance. Clearly there was no likely chance of getting to it before the time ran out so they had to hope that they encountered Sarah along the way.

Jareth watched with a frown as the girl and the creatures that had helped Sarah defeat his goblins moved towards the gates to the city that surrounded his castle. He knew that some of his soldiers had managed to capture Sarah and were even now leading her towards the castle, but the course that they were on intersected with the one that the girl and the others were on. It was entirely possible that they would run into each other and he didn’t know what would happen then. Nothing like this had ever happened before. True, Sarah had met up with her brother when she had been here before, but the baby had possessed no free will. Her daughter was quite another story, being very obviously obstinate and having already caused a great deal of trouble in his castle.

“You are so like your mother in many ways, Emma, and yet also so very different.”

It was true that some of his goblins were even now trailing the girl and her companions and he hoped that they could be captured and held before the groups met. The great beast with the girl could easily rout his goblins and the girl was more than capable of it as well. She wasn’t particularly strong but she had a far quicker mind than they did and had already displayed that fact. That meant that the goblins had to be not only successful with the trap that they were preparing, but also that they could get their captives into a nearby oubliette.

There was also another fact that bothered him, the dwarf was missing. He and Sarah had been together for a while until they had reached the Lake of Tears. Then they had separated and he had lost track of the being that had once worked for him. Hoggle being unaccounted for worried Jareth, the dwarf could easily tip the balance if he managed to link up with either group. He had proven that he was unfailingly loyal to Sarah and had risked much to come to her aid on several occasions the last time that she had stepped foot into his land. The dwarf knew the lands of the Underground nearly as well as its king did and that knowledge made him not only useful, but also very dangerous.

“Where are you, Hoggle, and what do you have planned?”

There was always the chance that Hoggle would run into one of them which would either be the end of him or the beginning of more problems. Jareth didn’t really want the dwarf to meet a nasty end, but he wouldn’t be upset if Hoggle ended up detained indefinitely or at least long enough to prevent him from intervening in what was planned for Sarah and her daughter.

He sighed deeply, trying to ignore the noise that the goblins in his throne room were making, as he turned his attention away from the crystal that kept him informed. Goblins were so like children, never seeming to stop making noise, but then again many of his goblins had been children when they had been brought to his castle. Many had been here so long that they couldn’t remember how long it had been, not that they could remember much anyhow. The process of becoming a goblin robbed a person of much of their intellect and memory and, if they had been a baby when brought to the castle, they weren’t much more after becoming a goblin.

Still, they were useful when he needed something done, which wasn’t often. Even more rare was when what he needed done was done correctly. The girl had proven that when she had bested several of his goblins, locking her guards in the room that she had been held in and escaping over the wall of the city in full view of one of the others.

His mind turned back to Sarah as he sat on his throne. She hadn’t been much older than the girl was now, but there was something about her that had held him captivated all of these years since. She had shown no fear of him and even more troubling had been prepared to face him and take back what he had in his possession.

“Why can’t you bring yourself to say the words, Sarah? I know that you have thought about this too, but you’re like your daughter, stubborn to a fault. You could be my queen if only you would say the words. Your daughter could go home if you would agree to stay here with me and I would forget about any of this happening. Just love me, Sarah, and all of this can be put behind us. I would never forsake you, never bring you pain, all that I ask for, all that I have ever wanted, is your love.”

He looked out through the window towards the sky, not even glancing at the clock that ticked away the time that the women had left to fulfill their quest, and then closed his eyes while he rubbed his temples to try to alleviate the headache that he had. It would be over soon, one way or another, and then he would have at least one captive or many.

Emma was making headway as she and her friends charged across a clearing and then stopped short as a group of goblins stepped out in front of them. A noise behind them told her that the ones that had been trailing them had finally caught up. The goblins spread out to encircle the trio while Emma, Ludo and Sir Didymus watched with dismay. This was the last thing that they needed, more delay.

“Surrender! We’s all around yous.”

Ludo glanced around the clearing and noticed that there were no rocks in view. They had walked into a trap and there wasn’t much that he could do about it. True, he was very strong and could probably beat them all in a fight, but Ludo wasn’t much of a fighter. He preferred to spend his time wandering through beautiful vistas and being at peace with everything around him, unlike the others of his species. They were terrifying creatures that liked nothing more than a fight, especially if it involved injury to their opponent. Still, several of the goblins were already trembling just at the sight of him and he wondered if he could pull something off.

He abruptly charged forward, much like he had with the fairies, roaring and bearing his teeth while he rushed at the goblins. The goblins, being goblins, abruptly dropped their weapons and scattered while the trio of friends hurried forward. Behind them the goblins that hadn’t fled were doing their best to keep up with their quarry while they shouted challenges.

“Come back!” the goblin in charge yelled while he tried to catch up with the girl and her friends. “Yous not supposed to do dat, it’s not in da rules!”

Emma and her friends, with Didymus showing a great deal of reluctance at what he considered performing a retreat, raced way from the pursuit and soon were outdistancing the patrols. They swiftly vanished into tree line again and were lost to sight, quite aware that they were being pursued by the angered and embarrassed goblins.

The girl raced through the trees and then suddenly saw something that didn’t look as it should. She came to a rather abrupt halt and looked down into the deep, seemingly bottomless, hole that she had very nearly tumbled into. Luckily, Ludo realized that his friend had come to a stop and didn’t bowl into her, which would have flung them both into the pit before them. Ambrosius, always on the lookout for danger, came to a stop as well giving Sir Didymus a chance to vent his angst.

“Why do you always retreat when the battle is _behind_ us?”

While Didymus chastised his mount, Emma was much more concerned with the proximity that she found herself in with the edge of the pit. She had very nearly gone over the edge and the dirt that tumbled down into the darkness told her that the sides of the hole were not going to support even her weight for long. The girl slowly backed away until she could no longer see into the pit and, ignoring Didymus’ continuing rants, looked back at the oncoming goblins. The creatures, seeing that the trio had stopped, assumed that they had decided to surrender and began to run towards them faster, which gave Emma an idea.

“Let’s go,” she shouted to her friends as she raced around the hole to come to a stop on the other side of it. The goblins, not paying attention to her maneuver, failed to slow down until it was far too late. Screams of terror rang from them as the group of goblins tumbled one after the other into the hole which no doubt led to an nasty end. She could hear their wails as they plunged downward and then ran from the scene, not wanting to hear the sounds of their impact at the bottom.

Jareth groaned as he watched the whole thing play out. It was true that he could recover the goblins as they wouldn’t be hurt by the incident at all other than being rather embarrassed by being tricked by a young girl and her friends. But the recovery would take time and they likely would never be able to catch up with her again.

Emma was counting herself fortunate. They had evaded two different groups of goblins and were making progress towards the castle. The girl actually had hope that they would run into her mother and then the two of them would be able to go home. She did wonder if her mother would be angry with her over the whole thing.

‘ _If she is mad at me she has every right to be. This was so totally stupid of me._ ’

She saw them at the last moment when it was too late to think of something useful and squealed as the first goblin fairly tackled her low, seizing her legs, knocking them out from under her and bringing her down hard onto the ground. The girl was dazed by the impact and had the wind knocked out of her, therefore she didn’t hear the struggle as the large group of goblins worked at overwhelming her companions. She managed to roll over to look into the eyes of the goblin that had finished tying her hands together and scowled as he spoke to her.

“We’s got yous now and da Boss has told us what to do with yous! You is goin into da oubliette and yous is never goin ta get outta dere until yous is a goblin.”

She watched as the majority of the group worked to lift Ludo back onto his feet while another group worked at restraining Didymus, Ambrosius had managed to flee, and the tiny knight was giving them no end of trouble. Finally, he too was overcome and Emma found herself being thrown over the shoulder of the large goblin as the triumphant group set a course for the pit that she had just managed to send their fellows into. They reached the edge of the pit and Emma watched in horror as first Ludo, then Didymus were sent careening downward. The girl was lowered from the goblin shoulder that she had been over and set back down onto her feet.

“Bye, bye, yous trouble maker, da Boss aint gonna let yous out until yous is a goblin like us!”

Emma looked down into the seemingly bottomless pit and was starting to turn back to her captors to say something to them when a push at her backside sent her over the edge and into the darkness below.


	7. Chapter 7

Sarah despondently followed the goblin that was leading her by the rope tied around her wrists. Every step that she took while following the soldier was one more away from her daughter and one closer to the end of the thirteen hours that she had to find Emma and prevent her from becoming a goblin. It seemed that she had already been trailing the goblin for hours when, in fact, she knew that it had only been a few minutes.

As she walked she wondered also about Hoggle. When he had run off into the woods after leaving the shores of the lake the trees had instantly closed the gap between them as if to prevent her from pursuing and possibly rescuing him. If her own situation was any clue her friend was likely facing his own troubles and there was nothing that she could do to help him if he needed it.

One thing that she had noticed was the fact that the goblin that was leading her wasn’t paying much attention to his captive, in fact, she had managed to fall back quite a bit. She had managed to gain several feet of slack in the rope and the goblins were so busy quarreling with each other that they hadn’t noticed her efforts. A glance around her told her that escape was possible, but she had to plan it carefully for if she failed in her attempt she likely wouldn’t get another chance. A tree branch ahead of her offered an opportunity and, as they passed it, she looped the rope around it and then waited.

The sudden jolt at the end of the rope brought the group to a halt and the goblins collided with each other. This had the effect of causing an immediate argument among them as they accused each other of causing the mishap. While they argued, not paying much attention to her, Sarah managed to get the rope untied from her wrists and then quietly slipped away from the quarreling group. She moved as quickly as she could while trying to remain concealed and quiet while the argument escalated behind her. It had to have come to blows because a large number of squawks, squeals, and yells suddenly erupted and were punctuated by the sounds of a tussle. She made good on her escape and soon was a respectable distance from her former captors. The argument would go on for quite a while and it was only when it finally ended that they noticed that the woman was nowhere to be seen.

The group of soldiers swiftly split up to search for her and soon her far out of her eyesight while she hurried back the way that she had come. She had to find Hoggle and fast, he knew the realm better than she, for time was of the essence.

Hoggle was also moving through the dense part of the forest, although he really wasn’t certain where he was. He had made a dire mistake by entering _this_ forest, for those who did rarely were seen again. There were things in this area that were always hungry, always looking for the unwary traveler who had entered their realm uninvited and unprepared for what lay ahead of them.

He was quite certain that he had already been noticed and he wondered what he had been noticed by. If he was lucky it wasn’t one of _them_ , but perhaps a member of a group of beings that were benevolent for the most part. He really had no desire to become a meal for something, especially if they decided to eat him before killing him. The tree fairies were bad enough, but at least they sang their victim into a lull before starting their meal. Their neighbors weren’t as pleasant or well-mannered and tended to enjoy the suffering of their victims. Given those tendencies, he would have much preferred to run into a swarm of tree fairies or even goblins.

The path before him was indistinct being not often travelled and he was finding it hard to stay on it. This troubled him, for he didn’t want to lose the one clear sign that he was making progress in his efforts to escape. The air under the trees was close and getting heavier as he progressed, making it difficult to breath. A fallen log ahead of him was tempting, if he could sit down there and just rest for a moment things would be better and then he could resume his attempts to find Sarah and her daughter. He settled down onto the log and attempted allow himself to catch his breath but the trouble was that he couldn’t. Instead it felt as though he never would, as if he had been climbing a long, steep hill while carrying a heavy load.

He began to panic as his breaths came in large gulping heaves while he tried to fill his lungs with the air that he needed to survive. Then his panic increased as he felt hands grip his shoulders and then pull him backwards to fall off of the log. The last thing that he saw before he lost consciousness was an unfamiliar face that looked down at him with an odd expression. He had time for one thought before he fell into a blissful darkness.

_‘I’m coming, Sarah! The problem is that I don’t know where I’m going.’_

His eyes closed and he didn’t feel himself falling to the forest floor or the hands that lifted him before more helped carry him deeper into the trees. While the group progressed they sang a very strange song that would have reminded someone who had watched an old movie of one sung by triumphant hunters after a successful safari.

Sarah stumbled through the forest as she attempted to find her friend and, hopefully, her child. She walked around a corner and was stunned to see Jareth standing in her path.

“It is a bit different this time, isn’t it, Sarah?”

“No different, I’m here again trying to retrieve something that you have taken.”

“Do you still think it’s a piece of cake?”

Memories of the last time that that phrase had been used resurfaced in her mind and she remembered watching the hands of the clock whirling madly as she was robbed of time to find Toby. Now Jareth was obviously considering doing the same thing during her search for Emma.

“Jareth, unlike you, I did learn a few things the last time. No, I don’t think that it’s a piece of cake! What I do think is that it’s too bad that you didn’t learn anything the last time. I intend to find my child and return home, while you sit in your throne room and listen to the arguing of goblins.”

Jareth scowled as her response registered in his mind. This was something that he had never counted on for she had learned the last time that he had confronted her. She _had_ learned that she could defeat him if she tried hard enough.

“Now, if you don’t mind, I’m trying to find my daughter. It’s something that wouldn’t be necessary if you would learn to keep your hands off of other people’s children!”

Jareth only watched as the woman stepped around him and hurried on down the path that she had been on. His eyes followed her until she vanished among the trees and he leaned back to rest the back of his head against a tree trunk.

_‘You’re all a really want, Sarah, if only you could see that. I would gladly trade anything, including the freedom of your daughter, for one small bit of your love.’_

Sarah was glad that the Goblin King hadn’t been able to see how quickly her heart was beating. It would have told him that she was indeed frightened of him, even if it was just a small bit. But there was something else about Jareth that she was grateful that he couldn’t see. A bit of attraction for him, something that had touched her all those years ago when she had first visited the Underground and walked the seemingly endless corridors and passages of the labyrinth. It had been something that, although she had loved him at the time, Emma’s father had never incited.

She had never openly compared the men but Jareth possessed many qualities that her former husband had not. One of the most outstanding qualities had been Jareth’s dedication and perseverance while he pursued her through the labyrinth. She had hated him at the time, but maybe hate was too strong a word for what she felt, and had vowed to push him to the back of her mind where he could never trouble her again. But he had managed to escape from that exile, thanks to the words spoken by her child and the pages between the red covers of the book, and now she had to deal with him once again, not to mention wrestle with her feelings as well.

Sarah walked down the path and suddenly wrinkled her nose as a terrible smell assailed her nostrils. She felt a pang of relief as she realized that only one thing here could smell as badly as this did, the Bog of Eternal Stench. It also meant that help was close by, Sir Didymus. All that she could hope for was that he remembered her and was willing to help.

She had no reason to believe that he wouldn’t help her as he had been quite a bit of help, albeit sometimes misplaced and rather chaotic, the last time. The woman carefully picked her way along the path, remembering the warning that Hoggle had given her about getting the sludge on her while they had been climbing the ladder after escaping the Cleaners below ground. It did indeed smell exactly as she remembered it smelling all of those years ago.

Ahead of her she spotted the small beach-like area where she and Hoggle had landed and where she had been reunited with Ludo. She hurried to the spot and then looked around until she spotted the home of her friend and the remnants of the bridge that had collapsed as she had been crossing it. Below that bridge was the line of boulders which formed the new method of getting across the water without stinking for the rest of one’s life. They were apparently dry now, and much less likely to induce someone slipping and falling in.

Holding her breath as much as she could and breathing only when necessary (finding it hard that anyone couldn’t), Sarah approached the tree which Didymus called home. She remembered clearly the tiny knight stopping them from crossing the bridge and the resulting battle with Ludo. In the end Didymus had called it a draw and conceded defeat to Ludo. He had still tried to stop them from crossing and only allowed it when she had asked for permission to make the trip, a trip which had almost ended in disaster. The ancient and very rickety plank which served as the bridge had collapsed under her weight and the few raps that Didymus has landed on it with his stick. She had found herself dangling precariously over the stinking soup and ready to fall in. Only the fact that Ludo could call rocks to his aid had saved her from a terrible bath in the water.

“Didymus! It’s me, Sarah, I need your help!”

There was no answer from the small squire and she tried several more times before she thought that she heard something.

“Didymus?”

The sound of armor and sloshing water told her that she had not summoned her friend; instead several goblins came trudging around the tree. Water dripped from their armor and none of them looked very happy about the situation. As hard as it was to tell what they smelled like, it was obvious that they had taken a dip in the bog.

“What is yous doin here?” the leader growled as he leveled his spear at her.

“Oh, I just came to visit my friend, Sir Didymus.”

“Dat liddle squeaker?” the goblin replied as he indicated the tree. “He done went off and went wid some girl what made us fall in da bog. Yous looks a lot like her, you do!”

“She’s my daughter. Do you know which way they went?”

“Dey wents dat way,” the goblin responded with a wave of his spear.

“Thanks,” Sarah responded as she started past the group, but she was blocked by the spears which suddenly were pointed at her.

“Where does yous think yous is a goin? Yous is our prisoner and maybe da Boss will let us leave da Bog if we gives yous to him.”

“Probably not, I just saw your Boss back up the path and he let me walk right on by,” which was easy to say because it was the truth, “and actually would be rather angry if you keep holding me up and maybe make you take another bath in the bog!”

A round of raucous complaints at the idea of another dip in the bog met her statement and the leader suddenly had to deal with a near mutiny as his group threatened to desert. Sarah watched with amusement as they pushed and shoved and tumbled until finally, forgetting where they were and what they were doing, the entire group fell into the bog once again. Only this time there was a terrible splash as they all fell in at once. Sarah managed to avoid being splashed by the muck and hurried on across the bridge to the other side just as the goblins crawled out of the water, grumbling at their continued misfortune. One of them noticed her and shouted, which resulted in a mad dash across the rocks and another dip in the water as the foot of one of them slipped on the boulder and he took his fellows with him.

Sarah hurried to put distance between them and her as she walked trails that were familiar. She had walked the trails years before and each step brought back memories of that trek. It was not long before she reached the point where Hoggle had given her the peach and she had ended up, after dancing with Jareth in some surreal ball, in a vast junkyard outside Goblin City and then in what had appeared to be her room. Only it hadn’t been her room, it had been a decoy shown to her to make her forget about Toby and the reason that she was searching. The decoy had been far to complete and the book had been present in front of her mirror. She had narrowly escaped the trap only to be rescued by Didymus and Ludo before they walked through the gates of the city and faced the giant goblin robot which had nearly ended their travels. Only the intervention of Hoggle had saved them and had proven that he truly was a friend and capable of thinking of others.

The sounds of someone approaching made her shrink back into the shadows and she watched as several goblins walked back in her direction. They were laughing and having a great deal of fun as they prepared to enter the forest.

“Did ya see her face right before I shoved her in da hole? It was almost as fun as watchin da big furball fall in wid da liddle squeaker and his dog. Da boss is gonna be plenny happy wid us for dumpin da trouble makers in dere!”

A terrible screech broke the air and the goblins, never the bravest creatures, turned and ran as they scattered in all directions. Sarah, the source of the screech, caught up with the leader and tackled him. Thinking that he had been seized by something terrible, the goblin began to weep and wail and plead for his life.

“Please don eat me, me no wanna be dinner! Me jus wanna go home tonight an eats my food.”

Sarah allowed him to roll over after casting his spear to one side as she straddled him and snarled her anger.

“What did you do with my daughter? Tell me now, or I’m going to tie you to a rock and throw you into the Bog of Eternal Stench!”

The goblin may not have been the smartest creature, but he knew enough that he didn’t want to trust fate when he saw the look in the eyes of the enraged mother.

“Tell me now, or you’re going swimming in the swamp!”

“We tosses her in da oubliette. She falled down and down and down cause there ain no bottom! She gonna fall forever and ever. Ain no way she comin back!”

“Then I guess that I’m going to have to tie a rope around you and throw you in to that hole after I tie the rope to a tree. Then I’ll climb down to look for her and if she’s hurt I’m going to cut that rope and let you fall forever and ever! I hope that there’s something down there that likes to eat goblins. You can be something’s dinner!”

She rose and dragged the goblin to his feet before prodding him in the backside with his own spear.

“Show me where it is and I mean right now!”

“Ain gonna do no good! I told you she gonna fall forever and ever. Dere ain no bottom in dat hole!”

“You had better hope that I get her back or I am going to make certain to tie you out so some big and terrible thing can eat you for dinner.”

The goblin began to weep and wail as they walked back towards the oubliette and they finally arrived at the edge of the large hole. Holding on tightly to the goblin, Sarah leaned out as much as she dared to look into the hole where she hoped to see her child. Instead, all that met her eyes was darkness as far down as she could look.

“I told you, dere ain no bottom, lady. Please don throw me in or let something terrible eat me.”

Sarah felt tears run down her cheek as she thought about her child and then looked at the goblin. It was at that moment that she remembered that, at one time, the goblin had been someone else’s child. Probably he had been taken as a baby and had grown up here, never knowing a parent’s love. She released him after throwing his spear far away from the hole as she made up her mind. He looked at her strangely, unable to think of something to say.

“Go on home, enjoy your meal and don’t steal anymore children.”

The goblin watched with incredulous eyes as the woman took a deep breath, just as she had done in the castle, before leaping out into space and then vanishing into the darkness. The stunned creature watched her vanish and then turned to walk away before stopping and reaching up to wipe a tear away from his own cheek. Then he walked away from the hole without looking back.

Hoggle awoke in a dark, moist cave to the sound of strange music. He was surprised to find that he was not bound and rose slowly to a sitting position on what appeared to be a bed made of soft mosses. An incredibly wonderful smell met his nose and he could hear the sounds of activity outside the cave. From time to time a shadow moved across the wall as the being that cast it traveled back and forth in front of the mouth of the cave. At one point he realized that the owner of that shadow was entering the cave and he hurried to lie back down to feign sleep. He had barely closed his eyes when he realized that whatever it was, it was standing over him.

He carefully opened his eyes and was startled to see that the thing, which looked quite a lot like his race, was colored a mottled green. He found his courage and finally spoke as the thing watched him with luminous eyes.

“Wh-who are you?”

“Me Brinth! Who you?”

“Hoggle.”

“Hoggle? Hoggle? What Hoggle?”

“I’m Hoggle, that’s my name.”

“Ohhh! Hoggle name.”

“Yes, Hoggle is my name. Where am I?”

“Hoggle name in my home.”

“You live here?” Hoggle asked as he ignored the response and took the opportunity to look around at his surroundings.

The cave was not as dark or as moist as many that he had been in. In fact, it looked like it might actually be comfortable. What he had assumed were simply large rocks were actually pieces of furniture that had been created by someone with exceptional talent.

“Hoggle name hungry?”

“No,” he responded, “it’s not Hoggle name, just Hoggle.”

“Ohhh! Just Hoggle name hungry?”

Hoggle reached up to slap his forehead without thinking and Brinth reached up to slap his own forehead before giggling hysterically and leading the way out of the cave. Hoggle followed him and soon found himself in a clearing of exceptional beauty where other creatures like Brinth went about their business. Evidently dinner was the business at the moment because several of the smaller creatures were already eating a strange looking food that smelled wonderful. Brinth noticed his response and led him to a log to be seated before handing him a bowl that had been filled with the substance and an eating utensil that looked incredibly like a spoon.

Hoggle cautiously dipped some of the food from the bowl and tasted it. Instead of being terrible, it was extremely good and he settled down to eat. Brinth took a place next to him and began to dig into his own bowl. Hoggle wasn’t certain what the meal was, but whatever it was, it was tasty.

“Uh, Brinth, where am I?

“You in Brinth’s home, just Hoggle name.”

“But where am I?”

“Brinth’s home.”

Hoggle looked around the clearing and noticed nothing that looked particularly menacing. In fact, the clearing looked very peaceful and, when he had finished with his meal he was stunned when the bowl simply vanished from his hands and appeared freshly cleaned on a rack which was filling as others around the fire finished with their meal. The smaller beings, obviously children, rose to begin their play while adults finished with their meals and began their tasks.

“Why is just Hoggle name in forest? Not safe where you were found, many bad things there.”

“I got lost after I ran from the lake.”

“Lake bad place, many of Brinth’s people go there and not come back. Goblins always looking for little ones.”

“I was with a friend and we got separated. I need to find her to help her find her daughter.”

“Why is she looking for daughter?”

“The goblins took her child and if she doesn’t find her soon the girl will be turned into a goblin just like them.”

The creature thought for a moment before speaking again.

“We help just Hoggle name find his friend and her daughter.”

“Can we go now? She doesn’t have much time left.”

“We go now, just Hoggle name, to find your friend.”

Hoggle watched as the men of the village and some of the women rose to gather what were obviously weapons and then they set out on the search for Sarah. As they walked through the forest Hoggle felt none of anxiety that he had before. He was accompanied by a large group and he doubted very much that the goblins would even think about tackling them. For all of their rather childlike looks, the members of Brinth’s village appeared ready to deal with any trouble.

He listened to the group while they talked and finally understood that they had been forced into hiding in the forest long ago after they had escaped from the first Goblin King. Many of their children had been taken and had become the very thing that they hated and feared the most. Since they had gone into hiding, only a very few children had vanished and they had managed to live a peaceful life.

He was also very surprised to find that there was nothing horrible living in the forest. The bad things that they talked about were the goblins themselves for they were always searching for children. There were a few tribes of goblins that Jareth didn’t control and they were the ones to truly watch out for. They had a nasty habit of eating unwary and worried travelers after stealing their children.

One of the lead warriors suddenly stopped and knelt down in the foliage while also pointing at what he had spotted. A lone goblin was walking sullenly across a clearing doing of all things, crying loudly. The goblin stopped, terrified, as the warriors rushed from the trees to surround him with their spears leveled at him. Brinth and Hoggle had rushed forward too and soon stood with the warriors while the goblin looked from one angry face to another.

“Please no hurt me! Me don do nuttin.”

Brinth said something that Hoggle didn’t understand and the warriors lowered their weapons while Brinth and Hoggle stepped up to the goblin. The goblin’s eyes went wide as he recognized Hoggle and hope entered what little thought that he had.

“Hoggle, please, don let dem hurt me. Me don do nuttin. Me jus show lady hole where her kid went.”

“Lady? What lady?”

“Da lady what scared me! She was gonna throw me in da hole or let da mean things eat me.”

Hoggle stepped towards the goblin after seizing a spear from one of the warriors. He leveled the weapon at the creature while growling his next question.

“Where is she?”

The goblin was trembling as he looked from Hoggle’s face to the spear that was pointed at his.

“Where is she?”

“I dun already told you, da lady is in da hole.”

“What hole? You show us or I’ll let them do what they want with you.”

“Me do it, jus don hurt me.”

The group set out for the place where the goblin had parted with Sarah and it did not take long before they arrived. The goblin pointed at the large hole in the ground and Hoggle swallowed hard as he recognized it.

Before them lay a hole that was widely rumored to be bottomless. It was said that if one fell in that you would never stop falling. Hoggle stepped towards the hole and looked into it, careful not to get too close to the edge.

“Oh, no, not the Mouth of Forever.”

“Can me go now, Hoggle? Me do what you told me to.”

“As long as they don’t mind, I don’t care what you do.”

Brinth’s warriors parted and allowed the lone goblin to pass through them. They truly wanted only to help their new friend and were saddened when Hoggle knelt and then cried brokenheartedly over his lost friend. Sarah had been a true friend and now she was gone forever. He finally rose and turned to walk away, but not before looking into the darkness of the pit and speaking.

“Goodbye Sarah, I’ll never forget you. I hope that you find your daughter in there.”

As he walked away with the warriors Hoggle had something else in mind and, as the trail passed in front of him, his thoughts turned to the Goblin King.

_‘You caused all of this, Jareth, and now I think that it’s time that a new king sits on that throne. I’m not afraid anymore.’_


	8. Chapter 8

Emma was terrified as she fell into the large dark hole after being shoved by one of the goblins. Their laughter as she vanished into the depths echoed in her mind and she knew that there was nothing that she could do now but fall and cry. She had seen Ludo, Sir Didymus and Ambrosius thrown into the pit and could just see them ahead of her. Ludo was bellowing in fright, while Ambrosius was howling out his and Didymus was complaining about the unfairness of it all.

_‘Goodbye, Mom, I guess that I’ll never see you again, at least not while I’m a human. The time is going to pass and I’ll be a goblin and you won’t even recognize me because I’ll be short and ugly.’_

As she fell, she noticed that the walls were closing in on her, which meant that the hole was getting narrower. In the near blackness, she began to make out things projecting from the walls and she was brought to an abrupt halt as something grabbed her. The girl shrieked in alarm and was stunned when something spoke to her.

“What’s with all the screaming? We’re not deaf you know, so there is no reason to get loud.”

Emma could feel other things touching her and, alarmed, she looked around and could make out _hands_. As she watched, the hands moved to form faces while they spoke to her.

“It’s not often that we get company and now four at nearly the same time.”

“The large one is particularly hard to manage, he’s very heavy,” another voice groaned.

“At least the little one is easy to hold on to, but if he tries to bite again we’re going to let him go on his way.”

“Unhand me, you foul villain!”

“Didymus, you have to stop biting the hands that hold you. I don’t know how deep this is, but it’s going to hurt if you hit the bottom hard.”

“But young lady,” the hands in front of her interrupted, “there is no bottom. If you fall into this hole you will never stop falling. You shall fall forever.”

“But that’s impossible! Every hole has a bottom, it has to start somewhere!”

“This is the Mouth of Forever! There is no beginning and no end. No one has ever reached the bottom or climbed out, all that you can do is fall.”

“Then I’m going to die in here?”

“No, you will never die, you shall just fall forever.”

“Then I will just turn into a goblin at the end of the time.”

“Goblin? No, that magic does not work here! You shall remain as you are forever.”

“Argghh!" some of the hands yelled before they explained their irritation. "We just lost our hold on the big one, he’s falling again!”

“Ludo!” Emma shouted in alarm as she dimly saw her friend tumble down and away. “Someone has to help him.”

She watched with despair as the howling creature fell farther from her and then her eyes brightened as he stopped suddenly when several hands grabbed his ginger colored fur. He moaned in pain at the contact and then relaxed as the hands began to pass him back up closer to his stalled friends. This gave Emma an idea.

“Is there any way that you could work us back up to the top?”

“Not a chance,” a voice answered sarcastically from behind her, “because this hole gets wider at the top. It would have to be the same width all the way up for that to work. We couldn’t even send someone as small as you up, it’s totally hopeless.”

“But if there was a way, would you?”

“If there was a way, yes, but there isn’t so we won’t.”

“What’s down below us?”

“Just nothing! Even we stop at a point which means that once you reach that your long forever fall shall truly begin.”

Emma was about to start crying when she noticed something. She squinted hard in the darkness and realized that there was a large gap in the hands, a large gap which held a door. The door was large and appeared to be wooden with a large ring to serve as a pull.

“Does that door work?”

“Door, what door?”

“That one right there,” she answered as she pointed at the portal.

“I never knew what that was,” a voice responded from a face that she had never seen before. “All that I know is that it has always been here. What does a door do anyhow?”

“It can possibly be a way out of this awful place.”

“Awful? Awful?” one of the voices asked before turning stern. “You’ll see awful when we let go and let you tumbled downward forever.

“Emma?” an unexpected voice broke in as a loud chorus of complaints erupted from hands above her. She looked up to see her mother clinging to hands that she had brushed against.

“Mom? Mom! I’m so glad to see you! I knew that you would come to save me.”

“Why wouldn’t I? You may make me angry sometimes, but I would never stop looking for you if you were missing, do you understand me? Did you say that there was a door out of here?”

Emma smiled and nodded while pointing at the door.

“It’s right there, just to your right.”

Sarah looked in the direction that her daughter was pointing and saw her objective. Carefully she edged to the barrier and then, once she was able, gave it a shove. Nothing happened and Sarah looked at it strangely until her mind went back to the last door that had refused her passage in the Underground. She reached for the ring and then used it to knock on the door. Immediately there was a grinding sound and the door slowly swung open on rusty hinges that protested the exercise.

Once the door was all the way open, Sarah entered the passage beyond it and then turned to reach down to take the hand of her child.

“Come on, Em, you’re next. I’m going to need you to help pull the others in.”

Emma, with the help of the hands, was soon standing next to her mother and looking around as the hands passed first Didymus and then Ambrosius up to them. Soon, only Ludo remained in the shaft and slowly along with much complaint and groaning the hands managed to move the great beast closer to the door. But they could only move him so far because of the widening shaft and the loss of grip that they had.

“They can’t move him up anymore, Mom, he’s too big.”

The thought of losing her friend caused nearly as much pain to Sarah as the thought of losing her child had done. She looked down at the great beast, who moaned his despair at her.

“Sawah friend!”

“Yes, Ludo, I am your friend and I will never allow anything to happen to you.”

A jangling sound behind her alerted Sarah and she turned to see her daughter wrestling with a chain which hung from the ceiling and snaked across the floor of the small chamber that they were in.

“Will this work to help pull him up, Mom?”

Sarah looked at the chain and then nodded before picking up the loose end and tugging it hard to make certain that it was well attached.

“Yeah, I think that it might. Give me as much of it as you can. Ludo, as soon as you can reach this chain I need you to pull yourself up.”

“And please hurry, my phalanges will never be the same after this,” one of the hands complained.

Ludo stretched as much as he dared as Sarah carefully lowered the chain to him. Both groaned as the chain stopped just out of his reach. The large fingers of the creature could just touch the chain, but never hope to grip it.

“It’s too short, Emma, he can’t grab it. Isn’t there any more chain.”

When Emma didn’t answer, Sarah turned to see her daughter standing, with her hand over her mouth, as she stared down at something lying in the cave. She stepped away from the door after reassuring Ludo that she would be right back and approached the girl. Her gaze followed Emma’s and she realized what the girl was seeing.

A skeleton lay sprawled on the floor, a chain attached to a bony wrist, obviously the remains of some long ago captive. Mentally begging for forgiveness from the unfortunate, Sarah brushed past her child and reached down to pull the chain from around the bones. A moment later, she stood back up with the chain in hand and then rushed back to the door after pulling more slack from the chain that was looped through stanchions in the ceiling. She looped the chain around a large rock and then looked down at the beast which finally had a firm grip on the lifeline.

Ludo slowly pulled himself upward with the hands helping his ascent. Finally, after a great deal more complaining from the hands, Sarah was standing with her arms around her friend.

“Sawah back!”

She hugged the beast once again and then turned her attention to Didymus, who accepted the affection readily.

“My Lady, finally we are all safe.”

“But how did he die?” Emma asked. “The hands said that no one could die in the shaft and that the magic that will turn me into a Goblin wouldn’t work here.”

Sarah looked at her daughter with horror. She had assumed that once they were together again the girl would be safe from Jareth’s magic. Now she wasn’t so certain and the thought of losing her child again terrified her. Somehow they had to get to the castle and beat Jareth again.

“Mom, is that another door in the far wall?”

Emma walked towards what she had seen and soon was leaning with all of her weight against what obviously was a stuck door. It finally began to budge when Ludo stepped forward to assist the girl and then swung open to reveal a rather dark corridor beyond it. Sarah stepped ahead of her daughter and took the lead, much to the displeasure of Sir Didymus, as they began the trip down the long passage. They were stunned when torches that were in holders along the wall ignited as they approached, lighting their way forward.

“Ambrosius, at least this gives us light in case we have to go into battle once more. I do have to admit, however, that I hope that I remembered to take my teapot off of the stove. It wouldn’t do to have it boil dry.”

Ambrosius whimpered his response, although none in the group knew whether he was responding to Didymus’ worries about the teapot or his reference to going into battle or both.

Sarah was getting hungry and knew that others were too and this brought back memories of the peach that Hoggle had been forced to give her by Jareth and the near disaster that it had represented. This thought brought Hoggle to mind and she wondered about her missing friend. What had happened to him after he had vanished into the forest? Was he safe or had he fallen victim to something unpleasant.

The walk through the darkness, even with the light of the torches, was unnerving and many times their own shadows frightened them. Emma glanced around from time to time, making certain that there was nothing other than Ludo behind her. They had walked what seemed like forever when a booming voice echoed through the darkness around them.

“YOU’RE GOING THE WRONG WAY! GO BACK WHILE YOU STILL HAVE THE CHANCE!”

They all came to an abrupt halt while tried to determine who had spoken to them. Seeing no one, they started to walk forward once again only to stop with another voice spoke to them.

“SOON YOU SHALL MEET YOUR DOOM!”

Sarah stepped forward as she began to realize what was speaking to them. She walked around a corner just as a third voice announced itself.

“YOU SHOULD NOT HAVE COME THIS WAY! TURN AROUND OR SUFFER A TERRIBLE FATE!”

A large stone face graced one of the walls and she could see many more in the distance. She remembered Hoggle leading her through the tunnel after releasing her from the oubliette and encountering things such as these. Hoping that they were going in the correct direction she led the group past the first of the guardians and they were forced to listen to more warnings as they moved on.

“IF YOU CONTINUE THERE WILL BE NO HOPE FOR YOU!”

Emma turned to the face, startled as she realized that what it had said could also mean that soon she could be turning into a goblin. Tears began to run down her face as she sobbed openly, her shoulders shaking with her heaves of breath, and she finally stopped to lean against the wall to cry. Sarah stopped in her tracks and then turned back to her child.

“Em, we need to keep moving, we have to get to the castle before the clock strikes thirteen.”

The girl raised her head to look at her mother and nodded before stumbling forward to continue the trek. Her face was streaked with tears and her eyes red, but she did her best to stay with the group. As they walked and finally got past the stone faces that had been giving them warnings, they kept an eye out for a way to get back to the surface. They had gone up stairs and down corridors and navigated corners and all were getting rather tired of it when they finally arrived at a ladder that rose up from the floor and out of sight.

“I think that this may be the way out,” Sarah announced as she looked upward.

“But, my Lady, my loyal steed Ambrosius cannot climb this ladder, it’s impossible,” Didymus complained.

“If we tie him to Ludo we can get him up the ladder.”

“But what do we tie him to Ludo with, Mom?”

“Remember that piece of rope that we passed back there, Em? It should do the trick.”

Emma nodded as she turned and then ran back to the corridor where they had seen the rope. The twists and turns that she had to make were confusing but she finally arrived at her destination and picked up the rope before turning to make her way back. She gasped as a figure stepped out in front of her and then stepped into the light where she could see him more clearly.

“Jareth!”

“Emma. I understand that you have located your mother, now that is fortunate. But the question is, do you have enough time to get out before you become one of my goblins forever?”

“Leave me alone, Jareth, do you understand me?”

“Perfectly, but the question still remains, how much time do you have left?”

“I have plenty of time and you know it.”

“Oh, really? You truly believe that you have a large quantity of time remaining, do you?”

“Yes, now get out of my way.”

“Very well, I shall, of course, do as you demand. But once I do, the deal that I was going to make with you ends.”

The girl stopped short as the words reached her and she turned to the Goblin King.

“What deal? You never offered me a deal!”

“I was going to, but your insistence on being rude has ended any chance of it.”

“All that I want is to go home with my mother.”

“That is exactly the deal that I was going to offer you, but you don’t appear to be interested.”

“Of course I’m interested in going home with Mom.”

“Then you accept the deal that I am making?”

“What do I have to give you to make the deal?”

Jareth raised one finger to his chin as though he hadn’t already decided on the price that the girl would have to pay and acted as though the thought was difficult. Finally, he spoke in a tone that chilled the girl to the bone.

“I want the others that are with you and your mother. I want to watch them turn into goblins to serve me, them and the dwarf that disobeyed me. Once I have your agreement I shall return you and your mother to your home. Anything less than your agreement will mean that the clock shall continue counting down, only much faster than it already is.”

“I can’t decide what happens to other people without their permission!”

“And why is that, Emma?”

“Because it’s not fair!”

“You are so truly like your mother! As I recall, the last time that she was here she was very fond of that expression, boringly so in fact.”

“I can’t and won’t make a deal that affects others without their permission.”

“Then the clock continues, Emma. I wonder how you will look as one of my goblins? Not to worry, because I’m going to find out soon.”

She watched as he stepped back out of her way and she hurried back to her mother, who was beginning to become concerned.

“I was starting to worry, Em, what happened?”

‘It was him" she announced to her mother. "Jareth stopped me to try to make a deal with me and I refused.”

“What deal?”

The girl stopped for a moment and then finally responded.

“He offered to send you and I home, Mom.”

“Emma, Jareth doesn’t offer anything without something back.”

“I know,” the girl answered in a nearly inaudible response.

“Then what does he want?”

“Them,” Emma answered as she indicated their companions. “He wants to turn them into goblins.

There was a gasp as Ludo, Sir Didymus and even Ambrosius realized what the girl was saying.

“I told him no and he said that that would cost me.”

“What will it cost you?” Sarah asked as her panic grew.

“The clock is going to wind down faster than it is. He’s going to go ahead and turn me into a goblin.”

“No, he’s not! I will not allow him to take my baby. Not now, not ever! We need to get to the castle and fast.”

A sudden excited shout from Sir Didymus gained their attention and all turned in his direction to see him pointing at one of the walls.

“My Lady, I believe that fortune may be with us for this tunnel is directly below the walls of the city. I recognize it after being here many years ago, I even left my mark on the walls back then,” Sir Didymus answered as he pointed out the mark that had been made long ago.

Sarah hurried to the side of her friend to peer at the marking that he had indicated. She looked around the area and then at Didymus.

“But why were you here?”

“It is rather embarrassing, my Lady, but I’m afraid that I got a bit confused and lost my way.”

“Down here?”

“It is a long story and I am afraid that if I take the time to tell it we shall all be goblins. Suffice it to say that it was an unfortunate error.”

“Where does it come out?”

“It opens at the very edge of the city. It is only a short walk from there to the castle.”

A sudden short scream from Emma made everyone turn to see the girl looking down with horror at one of her hands.

“What is it, Em,” Sarah asked as she hurried to the side of her daughter.

“My hand, it’s starting to change color. I’m starting to turn into a goblin.”

This was a much different situation than Sarah had been in the first time. To her knowledge Toby had not even been close to changing even though she had found him just before the clock reached thirteen. Emma’s hand was indeed showing a change in color, as it was beginning to turn to the flesh tone that she had seen on many of Jareth’s soldiers.

Emma began to sob once again and Sarah put her arms around her child to hug her before looking into the tear filled eyes of her daughter.

“I’m not going to let him take you from me, Em. We’re going to the castle and making him release you, do you understand?”

The teen nodded and then stood and watched as Ambrosius was tied to Ludo’s back, while Didymus climbed onto the shoulder of the large beast. Sarah took the lead and the group began the long ascent to the surface above. Like the ladder that she had used before to leave the depths of the tunnels, this one seemed to go on forever and Sarah was grateful to reach the door at the top. She carefully pushed it open to peer out and saw only the cluttered streets of the city where the rocks had helped rout the goblin army. A moment later, the door was open and she was climbing out into the daylight, followed by Emma and finally Ludo. The castle was easy enough to see and they began a slow approach, ducking out of sight when either a lone goblin or a patrol got too close to them.

They finally arrived at a house that all could get into and found that it was unoccupied. Swiftly they hurried into the dwelling to rest for a moment and also free Ambrosius from his predicament. Emma sat quietly in a corner as she looked at her hands, both of which had begun to change color now. Jareth hadn’t lied, the time that the girl had as a human was rapidly coming to an end.

“Mom,” she croaked in a voice that was hers but starting to change, “please help me. I don’t want to be a goblin. I promise that I’ll always do whatever you want me to without argument if you’ll help me.”

“Em, you’re not going to be changed into a goblin! I won’t allow it.”

They were about to leave the house when they got the sense that something wasn’t right and a glance outside into the street confirmed it. A large band of goblin soldiers had surrounded the house and were preparing to storm it.

“Come out! You are surrounded and are the king’s prisoners,” a very clear goblin voice announced.

Emma looked at her mother with stricken eyes as Sarah looked around the room at her other companions.

“They’ll take us to the castle and it’s where we need to be anyway. I need to confront him because there is no way that I am allowing my daughter to become a goblin.”

“We understand, my Lady,” Didymus said carefully, “and I acquiesce to your decision.”

Sarah turned to the door and then slowly opened it to face the crowd around them.

“We surrender.”

The goblins watched as the troupe emerged from the house and then, drunk with triumph, tied their wrists before herding them through the streets of Goblin City towards the castle. Sarah had never seen so many goblins, not even during the battle, and all of these lined the avenues while they cheered their soldiers on.

“Soon yous all gonna be like us!” a small goblin shouted at them as they passed.

Sarah made a half-hearted rush at the offending creature, growling and stamping her feet, until the rope around her wrists stopped her and pulled her back into the line. The goblins that she had rushed scrambled to escape her wrath and soon were a great distance away as they ran to their homes.

Jareth watched from his window as the group was led towards his keep and then turned to walk back to his throne room as the throng reached the front doors to the castle. He was already settled into his throne when the noise announced the approach of his prisoners and their guards. The Goblin King smiled with amusement as Sarah, her daughter, the large beast and the small knight and his dog were rather roughly herded into the room. Sarah stepped forward to face the being that she had defeated and humiliated long before and saw no sign of apprehension his eyes.

_‘He already thinks that he’s won.’_

“And look what the goblins have dragged in,” he said with a chuckle. “I guess that our little game is over, isn’t it, Sarah?”

“Let my daughter go, Jareth.”

“You know that there is only one way that that will happen.”

“And you know that I’m not afraid of you.”

“Sarah, your daughter has only a very short time remaining before she becomes a goblin. Unless you surrender to me and promise to stay with me forever, she will change.”

“Mom, you can’t!” Emma managed to croak.

“Guards, take those things,” Jareth commanded as he pointed to Ludo, Sir Didymus and Ambrosius, “to the dungeons and make certain that they don’t escape. If they give you any problems take them out of the city and to the Mouth of Forever.”

Sarah watched as her friends were dragged out of the room and down the corridor that they had just entered through. A second set of guards stepped up to Emma, who had shrunk a bit and was continuing to change color, and took each arm before looking at their king for instructions.

“Sarah,” Jareth said slowly, “if you continue to defy me I shall have her thrown into a dungeon cell until the change is complete. Tell me that you surrender to me and Emma will return to her correct form and be sent home.

“Mom, no!”

Sarah turned to look at the thing that her daughter was becoming and then finally spoke as she lowered her eyes and hung her head.

“I surrender, Jareth, just please leave my daughter alone and let her leave.”


	9. Chapter 9

Jareth’s eyebrow arched as Sarah agreed to his demands and he looked back towards Emma before speaking.

“Sarah, I shall return her to her normal form, but she shall remain my prisoner for a time. She shall reside here, in my castle, where you can visit with her to ensure her safety and well-being. Should you decide, however, to defy me and attempt to escape I will immediately be forced to complete the transformation.”

“My other friends, Ludo, Sir Didymus and Ambrosius, I want them returned safely to their homes.”

“Done, as long as they never return to my city they may live out their lives as they wish. Should they decide to return to my city, I shall transform them into goblins to join my army,” Jareth answered.

“Where is Hoggle?”

“Right now I have no idea where he is as he is within a part of my realm where my magic is distorted. The forests around the lake where he parted company with you are controlled by another power and I have little sway there. Should he be foolish enough to come to my city and attempt a rescue, I will give him one chance to leave. If he refuses, however, I shall be forced to deal with him.”

“You may have won for now, Jareth, but if you ever harm any of them I will make certain that you never forget your mistake.”

The eyebrow arched again and the Goblin King advanced on the woman who, despite his warnings about defiance, still showed no fear of him. Sarah stood her ground as the man stood over here and looked up into his eye with her own.

“You still have it, Sarah, the defiance that I found so appealing in you the last time.”

“And you still don’t have it, Jareth. I told you before that you have no power over me and it is just as true now as it was then.”

“True, but now your daughter is in the midst of this and I certainly can use her to get what I want.”

“Leave her out of this!”

“Then we do _understand_ each other!”

Jareth turned to Emma, who now looked as she should, before speaking.

“Emma, you shall accompany my guards back to the room where you were placed. You shall have complete run of my castle and none of them shall attempt to hinder you, but should you attempt to leave my city again you shall immediately become one of them.”

Emma nodded with tear-filled eyes and then stepped forward to hug her mother before being pulled away by the guards and escorted back to the room that she had escaped from. When she arrived there she was surprised to find that the door was not locked behind her nor were guards posted outside it. Feeling helpless, she turned and hurled herself onto the bed to cry.

Sarah watched from the chair that had been placed next to Jareth’s throne as Ludo, Sir Didymus and Ambrosius were led into the room.

“My Lady?” Didymus spoke slowly.

“It’s okay, Didymus, just do as he says, for your own good. Emma and I will be okay.”

“The three of you are to leave my city immediately and forever,” Jareth said firmly, “should I ever find you within the walls of my city again I shall be forced to turn you into members of my army. Now go!”

The woman could only watch as her friends turned and left the room after one final warning from Jareth.

“If any of you see Hoggle, give him the same message. Tell him that he is banished from the city and if he trespasses again I shall make him a goblin forever.”

The three friends left the room dejectedly and soon were being led out of the city by a column of goblin soldiers. They looked around at the grim faces of the goblins that had been assigned to remove them from behind the walls and decided that, at the moment, the only thing that they could do was exactly what they were. The gates to the city closed behind them and they turned to see the faces of goblin guards watching them from the tops of the walls as they walked away through the paths of the enormous junkyard that surrounded the city.

Sarah, now alone with Jareth in the throne room, ignored his attempts to speak to her. He had made a mistake, he had forbidden her to attempt to escape, but had said nothing about her not speaking to him. It was in this way that Sarah thought kindly of her divorce from Emma’s father as she had learned how to give the silent treatment to someone a long time ago.

Emma sat up on her bed and then walked to the window to look out on the city below them. She felt like some fairy tale damsel in distress, locked in a tower and waiting for a dashing prince to come and rescue her. But that was all pretend because there was no such thing as a dashing prince on a white steed that would come and slay the monster holding her here. All that she could do was to wait for her mother to figure out a way to trick Jareth into releasing them so that they could go home. She settled down on the window ledge to gaze out over the strange city that had become her home. Would her friends wonder what had happened to her? Would her teachers just assume that she had decided to skip again and send the police to their home? And what would happen to all of her things? Would they finally assume that she and her mother were dead and sell everything at an auction? Would she even be remembered by anyone?

Didymus looked back over his shoulder at the castle and city that were beginning to recede in the distance. With his exile from the city, he knew that it was likely that the goblin regiment that had been sent to his bog would be withdrawn. They had been sent there to make certain that he stayed put and would probably be assigned to a small group of huts that rimmed the territory. There they would stay to guard against him sneaking out.

Ludo would also be watched, of that he was sure, to make sure that he didn’t stage some sort of revolt with his friends, the rocks. The probability that they would become goblins was high if they disobeyed Jareth and he didn’t want to spend his days eating what they did and no longer the ruler of his realm. His teapot would give him some comfort when he got home and he would have time to try to think about how to rescue Sarah and her daughter.

Jareth finally gave up on his attempts to talk to Sarah. The woman was incredibly stubborn, something that he should have remembered, and was steadfastly refusing to even answer simple questions. He considered threatening the child again, but decided against it, that would raise her ire and likely result in a direct confrontation. No, he couldn’t do that, he had given his word that the only way that the child would be transformed into a goblin would be if she attempted to leave the city. Right now she was in her room in the tower and abiding by his wishes.

The crystal balls would keep her in his sight and he would know immediately if she tried something. Once she did that, he would have all the excuse that he needed to transform her into a goblin. He knew that only at dinner with her mother would he have to tolerate her presence, but at least then he would hear Sarah speak even if it wasn’t to him.

He glanced around the throne room again and was surprised that the normally boisterous goblins that were present were almost deafeningly quiet. He was stunned when Sarah spoke, not to him, but to the goblins.

“This place is disgusting! I want it cleaned and I mean right now. If I have to live here I want these floors clean enough that if I had to I could eat off of them,” she announced to the startled goblins. “Well, what are you waiting for, get this room clean!”

The goblins paused for a moment to look at their king before he nodded his agreement to her order. Grumbling, the goblins began to circulate around the room as they picked up debris from the floor and began to gather it into a crude wheelbarrow that one had brought in to help with the chore.

Sarah rose from her seat and walked towards a doorway.

“Sarah, where are you going?”

“You said that I cannot leave the city and I’m not. You never said that I had to stay in your presence the entire time and I don’t intend to. I’m going to my daughter’s room and I don’t need any guards to find my way there!”

Jareth watched as she vanished around the corner and began the trip up the stairs that her daughter had made. Then he turned to see that the goblins were busy following the orders of their new queen. None of them wanted to defy her, because doing that might land them in the middle of the Bog of Eternal Stench. She was the Goblin Queen and wielded as much power as their king, and that made her something to be afraid of.

 _‘What have I done by bringing her here?’_ Jareth wondered as he watched the beings that he had commanded for years doing the bidding of another. The goblins were so uncertain of what she would do that it made the situation difficult. They were already terrified of her anger, their haste at cleaning the throne room made that apparent. She had a commanding edge to her voice that he had long ago lost and he now feared that she might use that edge to take control of the city from him.

Sarah walked up the stairs as she followed the one goblin that she had chosen as her guide. The small creature hurried to lead her to her desired destination and then nearly fell all over himself as he hurried to leave her presence. She knocked on the door and announced herself, knowing that her daughter wouldn’t answer for anyone else.

“Emma? It’s Mom.”

The door opened slowly and a tear streaked face appeared as the girl admitted her mother. They hugged for a moment and then stepped back to look into each other’s eyes. Sarah could tell that the child was ready to burst into tears again and reached forward to run her hand down the arm of the girl.

“We’re going to be okay, Em.”

“Mom, I just want to go home. I never thought that I would say this, but if we get to go home I’ll never argue about anything that you tell me to do, not ever.”

Sarah hugged the girl again and then kissed her daughter gently on the top of her head before burying her nose in the dark hair of the child.

“I love you so much, Emma. You’re the best thing that I ever did and I have never been sorry to call myself your mother.”

“Even when I’m a pain in the butt?” the girl asked.

“I love you even when you’re a pain in the butt! I kind of had some experience with that because if you ask your grandfather, I was a bit of a pain myself, especially after he got remarried.”

“What are we going to do, Mom?”

“We, my darling daughter, are going to be major pains in Jareth’s butt! I’ve already started down in the throne room. The goblins are busy cleaning the place and not liking it one bit. Right now they’re so confused about who is in charge that it won’t be long before they start to dislike him as much as they do me. When he doesn’t do anything to change what I have ordered it will make him look powerless to them. They won’t do anything at first, but eventually they’ll start to look to me for directions and then they’ll follow my orders.”

“How does that help us?”

“Eventually he’ll want what he had back and he’ll let us go free.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yep, I want you to be as much of a teenager as you’ve always been. He can’t do anything to you without irritating me and that is something that he doesn’t want to do.”

“So I can be a major pain in his rear?”

“I want you to do that every chance that you get, Emma. He tells you to do something and you do the opposite. Just pretend that he’s me!”

The girl looked at her mother with wide eyes before realizing what her mother wanted of her. Then she nodded enthusiastically as the plan became clear in her mind. They were going to drive the Goblin King out of his mind and he would be glad to send them home. It was rather like when she would have a friend over that her mother didn’t care for and making such a scene that her parent was glad to see the other child go.

“This is perfect, Mom! You got a lot of the idea from me and my friends didn’t you?”

“Nearly every word, Em, just be ready to do your part.”

The girl grinned as her mother hugged her again and then reached up to ruffle her child’s hair.

“Be a teenager, Emma, just be a teenaged girl,” she whispered into her child’s ear before kissing her gently on the cheek.

“You know that I can do that, Mom.”

Sarah delivered a light swat to her child’s backside before Emma spoke again.

“You know, Mom, I really miss home. I even kind of miss doing homework, but just kind of.”

“Well, once we get back I will make certain that you have all the chances possible to do what you miss.”

The girl groaned at the thought and then smiled as an idea came to mind.

“Mom? Remember when I was little and wanted something in the stores, I used to drive you nearly bananas whining for it. Guess what Jareth is about to experience because I want some ice cream and soda for dinner.”

“That’s my girl! I want you to give it to him good.

“You can count on it.”

“He’ll turn to me to have me control you, but I want you to be a teenager and ignore us both.”

“Mom, you have no idea how many times I wanted to do just what you’re telling me to and get away with it.”

“I can kind of guess. I also want you to be nice to the goblins.”

“Huh?”

“If you’re nice to them, nicer than he is, they’ll listen to you and not him.”

The girl giggled as she bounced and then clapped her hands together.

“Excellent! How long do you think that it will take for him to go nuts?”

“Not very, we just have to be careful not to provoke him to the point of anger.”

“Oh,” the girl answered with mischief in her eyes, “you mean like I used to when you threatened to spank me if I kept it up?”

“Exactly.”

“I knew just how far I could go before I got a real swatting. Mom, this is going to be so much fun.”

Mother and daughter smiled as the plan came together and, by the time that a goblin came to the room to announce dinner, had everything arranged. They walked down the stairs, side by side, while they talked and Jareth was already seated when they walked in fashionably late. The annoyance on his face was obvious and the women walked quietly to the table where they were careful to take seats as far from him as possible.

They spoke quietly to each other while he found no comments directed at him and this annoyed him. That they were doing it on purpose was obvious and they had probably even planned it knowing that he really could do nothing about it. Emma looked at the meal that was placed before her and then down at their host with disdain evident on her face.

“Where is the ice cream for dessert?”

“Ice cream? Dessert?" he responded in shock. "We haven’t even eaten dinner yet and you’re already asking about dessert? Surely your mother taught you better than that, especially when you are a guest in this castle.”

“Guest? If I am a guest then I should be able to ask for whatever I wish and receive it without hesitation. Surely your mother taught _you_ better than that, especially when you say that you are the _ruler_ of this land,” the girl said as she used Jareth’s own words against him.

Jareth nearly choked on the drink that he had taken as the girl spoke back to him and referred to his parent, someone that he rarely thought about.

“And do you really expect me to drink this stuff?” Emma continued as she looked into her own goblet. “I want soda and I want it now!”

“Sarah, I know that you and your daughter have a plan to annoy me, but I assure you that it will not be successful.”

“What plan?” Sarah asked innocently, “she’s a teenager and what is going on right now is not uncommon at the dinner table.”

“And you put up with this childish behavior? It is hardly becoming of a young woman of Emma’s age.”

“You seem to forget what I was like when I was here the last time.”

“I WANT ICE CREAM AND SODA!”

Jareth glanced with irritation at Emma, who had just interrupted the conversation that was going on.

“Control your daughter, Sarah, or I shall not have her back at this table.”

“You cannot control a teenager, especially a girl, by those kinds of threats because it doesn’t work. I’ve been raising her for her entire life and know that for a fact.”

“Emma, go to your room! I shall have one of my goblins bring your dinner up to you.”

“I won’t go and you can’t make me! You’re not my father!” Emma said menacingly as she glared at the Goblin King.

“I will have them remove you then.”

“Do you really think that they scare me, Jareth? Don’t you remember how many I got the better of the last time when they couldn’t stop me from escaping the castle and then the city?”

“I warned you what would happen if you left the city without permission!”

“Who’s leaving?" Emma retaliated. "I’m still sitting right here listening to empty threats from someone who doesn’t know the first thing about teenagers!”

Sarah could see the anger growing in Jareth and Emma could to, she had learned to read an adult and their emotions as part of growing up. She settled back down to her meal and then looked at what had been exposed when she lifted the cover from it.

“Where are the French Fries? Mom, where are the French Fries? Don’t they know anything about what a teenager likes to eat?”

“Apparently not, Em. Hopefully they will learn and soon.”

“I still want ice cream and soda!”

Jareth reached up to rub his temples in an attempt to relieve the headache that was growing. The girl had been back in his castle for less than a day and already he was wishing that he had never met her. Emma was nothing like her mother had been, but then he hadn’t had as much contact with Sarah as he had her daughter. Perhaps she would have been if put into the same situation that Emma was in.

He glanced at the women that had joined him at the table while wondering how far they planned to take it. They definitely had worked this out together and would play it as far as they dared. But the insolence was not what worried him. The goblins had worked hard to clean up the throne room of the castle and he had to admit that it looked better than it had in a very long time. But they were learning that they had to take orders from Sarah, seeing her as their queen, and his equal. She might not have the command of magic that he did, but what she did have was just as troubling. Sarah had an ally that would not fail to follow her lead and more allies once they had rallied and decided to come back, possibly with reinforcements if the banished ones were found and decided to come to their aid.

The rocks that the beast could summon were also a problem. You couldn’t threaten a rock with harm, they didn’t care what happened. The goblins were terrified of the thought of them returning and would be hesitant to fight again if it was even a remote possibility that they would have to face that threat again.

While Jareth considered his problems, Emma looked at her mother and gave her a sly grin. That the plan was already having an effect was obvious. It would take some doing, but they were going to make Jareth wish that he had never met them.

Emma glanced at the meal in front of her and gave it an exploratory taste. It wasn’t bad, but it also wasn’t her mother’s cooking. It actually reminded her of something that they would serve as a part of school lunch and this gave her an inspiration.

“Mom, I think that I have this figured out.”

“What do you have figured out, Em?”

“They’re serving us school lunches! It’s obvious that the women who make and serve lunch at school are all goblins that got kicked out of this castle. I thought that a king would have better food served to his guests than this!”

Jareth groaned again and then looked at the girl before finally speaking.

“Go to your room right now before I forget that I promised not to transform you into a goblin!”

“Jareth, if you even consider harming my child you will bring my full wrath down on you and you won’t like it one bit.”

“You won’t,” Emma parroted as she agreed with her parent, “I’ve seen it and you won’t like it.”

“Go to your room!”

“Do I get ice cream and soda if I do?”

“NO!”

“Fine! Be that way! I can tell when I’m not wanted! You can just go to HELL, Jareth, because I’m not going anywhere!”

Jareth abruptly rose from his seat and walked towards the girl to stand over her and glare down at her. Emma rose and, playing the part of a teenager, returned the glare with her own intense blue eyes.

“Do you really think that you scare me, Jareth? I’m not frightened of you, not in the least!”

“I am trying to be patient with you, Emma, but my efforts are coming to an end.”

“Is that supposed to mean something to me? If it is, it doesn’t!”

“Go to your room right now!”

“Emma, go ahead, I’ll be up in a little bit.”

Both of the combatants looked at Sarah who had read the danger in Jareth’s eyes and knew that her daughter was beginning to tread on thin ice. Better to fight another day than to fall through and end up harmed. The girl, still playing her part, growled her irritation and then reached out to knock over her goblet onto the table. She was walking out of the room towards the stairs to her room while the drink trickled down onto the floor.

“Emma, get back here and clean up the mess that you made.”

The girl didn’t slow down and lifted her right hand with her middle finger raised at Jareth as she vanished up the stairs.

Jareth looked down at Sarah as she watched the drink run to the floor.

“Sarah, you are going to have to control her, for her own good.”

“I’ve been trying to control her for fourteen years, good luck controlling her in just one day.”

“I do have ways of doing that.”

“Is that a threat?”

“Take it as you wish, Sarah, but she will either follow my orders or pay the price.”

“Harm my child and it shall be you paying the price,” Sarah responded as she rose and then, before walking out of the room, knocked her own goblet over onto the table.

“Sarah,” Jareth called after her, “I told you a long time ago not to defy me! Perhaps it’s time that you learned a lesson.”

“Do something that you shouldn’t and it will be you learning a lesson.”

“Is that a threat?” Jareth answered with Sarah’s own words.

“No, Jareth, it’s a promise that you don’t want me to keep.”

The Goblin King watched as the woman that he had long desired but now wasn’t certain that he wanted vanished up the same stairs that her daughter had just used. He watched as Sarah’s drink joined Emma’s on the floor and then called for the goblin that was charged with cleaning this particular room before stalking out of the room and out into his city.

Sarah walked into the room that Emma occupied and found her child sitting on the bed as she waited for her parent.

“Did I do okay?”

“You were wonderful, but be careful, don’t make him so angry that he carries out his threat.”

“Mom, he had the same look in his eyes that Mrs. Lockwood gets when she talks to me. He was pissed, but didn’t know what to do with me. Jareth has no clue how to handle a kid that is being a pain. He wants to do something about it but doesn’t know what to do without irritating a parent.”

“I noticed that too, but be careful. You just wouldn’t be as cuddly if you were a goblin. You’d be kind of cute, but nowhere near as cuddly.”

“Thanks, I think.”

“It looks like there is room for two in this bed,” Sarah said as she looked it over, “do you want a bunkmate?”

“Sure,” the girl answered, “it will be kind of like when you used to read me a bedtime story. I remember how you used to climb into bed with me to read until you thought that I was asleep.”

“I knew that you weren’t asleep, Em, you weren’t as good a pretender as you thought that you were. But I knew that you would be really soon and didn’t mind a little girl who thought that she was pulling something over on her mom.”

Emma looked at her mother with surprise and then hugged her parent while her mother stroked the dark hair of her child once again.

“We’re going to be okay, Em. We’re going to get out of this and go home. I promise you that.”

Sarah and Emma settled down in bed and talked for a while until they finally fell asleep while Jareth stalked the streets of Goblin City. It had been a long time since he had done this and he was struck by how decrepit the city was. Some of the structures almost looked as though they were ready to fall over and debris filled the avenues. Clearly something had to be done and he wondered just how to get it all the way that he wanted while also keeping the guards where they belonged.

Sarah hadn’t truly surrendered he knew that, she was simply waiting until the time was right. He was nearly ready to tell her that she could go and take her insolent daughter with her. This would prevent him having to do something that was certain to bring a response from her. It would also prevent a response from her allies, who he was certain were preparing to mount some grand attempt to rescue the pair.

Jareth had no clue how correct he was in his assumption for Hoggle and Brinth had rallied the warriors of the village and a march upon Goblin City had begun.

“We’re coming Sarah,” Hoggle growled as he marched, “and this time we’re going to have a new king.”


	10. Chapter 10

Hoggle, Brinth and the warriors from the village were trudging across yet another clearing on their way to Goblin City. As they walked their resolve grew, the goblins had taken much from the village over the years, including many children that had not been seen since. Many feared that the children had become the very thing that they hated the most, goblins. If that was the case, there was a very real possibility that they were about to face the ones that they had lost when they met the goblin army.

No one really wanted to fight, in fact, Hoggle was hoping that they could avoid just that. The warriors from Brinth’s village presented a terrifying image and he hoped that they could intimidate the goblins enough to simply surrender. Even if they didn’t surrender, Hoggle meant to see them lose and lose badly. With Sarah gone, a victim of the Mouth of Forever, he had nothing left to lose. Jareth had taken all that he cared about and this had filled the small man with a huge anger. The thought of his friends falling down that bottomless hole forever had him ready to storm the castle alone. He wouldn’t need the army that was with him to defeat the Goblin King. Once Jareth was defeated he could live in the Bog of Eternal Stench for the rest of his days while he sat and dreamt about the years that he had lived in the castle.

Brinth abruptly stopped as one of their scouts ran back towards them. Hoggle was amazed at the speed with which the beings, which weren’t any bigger than he, could run. They could climb trees swiftly and run like the creatures that the goblins often rode. The fact that their skin was nearly the color of the foliage helped hide them in the trees and tall grass. They weren’t the bravest, but they disliked Jareth as much as he did, maybe more. The scout stopped in front of them to speak quickly.

“Jarda no see any goblins on roads. King pulled them back to da city to guard walls.”

“If the walls are manned we can’t get into the city, Brinth.”

“Just Hoggle name,” Brinth began, “does city have pipes underground?”

“Yes,” Hoggle answered, “yes it does.”

“Where does we go in pipes?”

“They come up just inside the walls through openings.”

“How does we get in pipes?”

“There’s only a few ways and none of them are nice.”

“Just Hoggle name, show Brinth and army where go in pipes.”

“You want to sneak into the city that way?”

“Yes, Just Hoggle name, we goes in city that way.”

“We need to go in at night and catch them while they are sleeping. If we can catch them while they aren’t ready we won’t need to fight.”

“Does goblins guard way into city from pipes?”

“Never,” Hoggle answered, “they aren’t worried about it. Jareth doesn’t think anyone will ever attack the city.”

“We attack city!”

“I hope no one gets hurt or worse.”

“Brinth wants goblins to go into big hole and fall forever.”

Hoggle nodded as his new friend spoke but also knew that what Brinth wanted was impossible. There was no way that they would be able to herd every one of the goblins into the great void in the ground without a fight breaking out. That meant the very real possibility of someone from the village ending up in the Mouth of Forever and joining the goblins in a perpetual fall through space. It was well known that victims of such a fall never aged, never died, they just fell. He had often thought about it and shuddered.

“Just Hoggle name, we go at night?”

Hoggle nodded before speaking while inside his heart was breaking. Nothing that they could do would save Sarah and her daughter or his other friends. They were prisoners of forever.

“Yeah, we go at night.”

While the allies made their plans Ludo walked silently with Ambrosius and Sir Didymus down the trail that they needed. The labyrinth was dense in this area and they needed to be aware of their surroundings. One wrong turn and they might end up lost for quite a long while. None of the three friends had wanted to leave Sarah and Emma behind, but they had been terribly outnumbered and Sarah had managed to get them out of the city without reprisal from Jareth. Now they were approaching the place where they would part and none of them had their heart in it. Even the normally loquacious Sir Didymus was silent as they traveled away from their friends.

“Ludo miss Sawah!”

Didymus quietly nodded his agreement as they prepared to make the final turn to leave the edge of that part of the Underground. They only had a few more hours before they arrived at their homes and all knew that the Goblin King was likely watching them as they travelled. They would likely never see Sarah or Emma again.

Ludo realized that they were very nearly to the place where he and his friends would part company. The house-sized boulder ahead had been there as long as he could remember and he had often considered asking it if it were tired of being in the same place all the time, but he had never done so. Instead, he had left it be and regarded it as a friend waiting to welcome him home. Once they passed it he would only be an hour or so from his cave, while Didymus and Ambrosius had several hours before they would cross the borders of the Bog of Eternal Stench.

The great beast had considered going on a rampage as the goblins led him from the castle and then the city, but Sarah had allowed his escape and he didn’t want to upset her.

“Arroooooo!” he suddenly bellowed.

The boulder seemed to ignore him for a moment and then, at the sound of the second bellow, shifted from where it had lain for centuries before moving back to its home. He considered bellowing again and having it follow him but then decided against it. While it was true that rocks were his friends he didn’t want to impose on its time by having it follow him. They reached the fork in the trail and then looked at each other for a few sad moments before parting without saying a word.

Ludo walked on with his head hung as the path moved below his feet. Not even the butterflies overhead caught his interest and therefore he didn’t see the small being that was following from a distance. The thing made a trilling sound that was answered by the same noise ahead. The great beast lumbered on, his head hung and never noticed the growing number of small creatures that were following him on both sides of the path that he was on.

A group of trees ahead of him provided the gateway to his home and, for the first time since he had left the city where his friend had stayed, his expression brightened. The sun overhead was hot and he wanted nothing more than the shade and the pool of fresh water that provided him with refreshment. He was nearly there when a small being jumped out in front of him with a spear pointing menacingly at him. Ludo came to a surprised stop while he regarded this miniscule threat and never saw the creatures that filled the tree branches above him. A moment later a large net fell down upon him and dragged him to the forest floor. Trilling their excitement at capturing such a large prisoner, the creatures swiftly bound him and then carried the howling Ludo out of the forest and towards their leader.

Sir Didymus was unaware of any of this and only became aware of the presence of the creatures that had managed to surround him and Ambrosius when a large number of them emerged from the brush with spears leveled. Already feeling defeated, Didymus didn’t put up a fight as the creatures quickly moved in to bind first him and hen his mount before hoisting them up onto their shoulders and then carrying them off. It was not long before the two successful groups met and any hopes that Didymus had for a rescue by Ludo were dashed.

The swarm of creatures, bearing their loads, began to move across the countryside swiftly, far more swiftly than Didymus would have imagined that they could have. It was to his surprise, and horror that he realized that the creatures seemed to be moving towards the Mouth of Forever and the tiny knight knew what it meant if the creatures tossed him in there. An eternal fall through nothingness and no chance to make certain that his teapot hadn’t boiled dry. He had been rescued from that fate once only to have it visited on him once again. Now there was little chance of a rescue occurring and he began to prepare to meet his future, if one could call it that.

Ludo wasn’t as worried as his companion, he recognized these creatures now and knew that likely they meant no harm. It was true that they had captured him, and that they were taking him somewhere, but he really wasn’t worried.

The creatures bearing them moved on across the countryside at a respectable velocity and, after several hours of non-stop travel, finally arrived at a large clearing where the friends were stunned to see an enormous number of the things. They were carefully placed onto the ground and then left to lie there until one who appeared to be their leader approached along with someone that they recognized.

“Sir Hoggle, it is I, Sir Didymus,” the tiny knight announced. “I would most appreciate my release.”

“Ludo? Sir Didymus? Ambrosius? I thought that you had fallen into the Mouth of Forever and that I would never see you again,” the small man said as he rushed towards his captured friends.

“Just Hoggle name knows these?”

“Yes, Brinth, I know them. They’re my friends, please free them.”

Brinth looked at the captives for a moment and then back to his friend before making the trilling sound in his throat. Several of the creatures hurried forward to unbind the captives and it did not take long before the three could stand on their own feet again.

“How did you escape the Mouth of Forever? I’ve never heard of anyone getting out of there.”

“Sawah,” Ludo answered as he interrupted his friend.

“Sarah? Sarah helped you to escape the Mouth of Forever?”

“Well, yes,” Didymus answered hesitantly. “We were in grave peril when she arrived. Sir Ludo was nearly ready to fall into forever when she helped him to safety.”

This sentence brightened Hoggle and then he realized that his friend was not with the group. Evidently Sarah had not been able to save herself from the prison of the Mouth of Forever. But, despite how much he knew that the news would hurt, he had to know the fate of his friend.

“What happened to her and her daughter? Did they fall into the forever?”

“Quite the opposite, Sir Hoggle, she and Emma are within the castle at the center of the Labyrinth. My Lady Sarah sacrificed her freedom to save us. She agreed to stay with Jareth to save us from becoming goblins.”

Hope flooded Hoggle for the first time in a great while as he realized that not all was lost. There was still a chance to save his friend and her daughter. Now there was a true reason to storm the city and the castle at the center of it. He was thinking about this when Didymus spoke again.

“Sir Hoggle, it is impossible to reach the fair maidens without great punishment.”

“What do you mean?”

“We, all of us four, are forever banished from the city. If we cross its boundaries we shall become goblins.”

“No!”

“The Goblin King was most succinct on his warning. We cannot reenter the city that he controls without becoming residents forever.”

Brinth listened quietly while the friends talked, not understanding their hesitance to assault the city. His people had been raiding it for a very long time and had yet to become goblins. He stepped forward to talk to them while the friends argued the problem.

“We can’t leave them in there!”

“Well, we certainly cannot go within those walls again! I would look dreadful as a goblin.”

“Arooo!”

Brinth stood for a long time until finally, tired of the argument, he spoke.

“Why is Just Hoggle name arguing with small one?”

“He says that we can’t go into the city or we’ll turn into goblins like the ones that guard the city.”

“Brinth’s people raid city often. Take many things from it and never become goblins.”

“That’s impossible,” Didymus retorted.

“No, we do it many times. We climb trees to get in, but goblins guard trees now.”

“But, if what you say is true, how are you not goblins?”

“Nanya!”

“Nanya? Who’s Nanya?”

“Food Brinth’s people eat.”

“You eat Nanya?” Didymus answered as he misunderstood, “That’s barbaric.”

Brinth looked at the small knight with surprise and then began to laugh as he understood Didymus’ confusion. He reached down to open the small pouch at his side and put his hand into it to withdraw several purple flowers which he stuffed into his mouth and then chewed before swallowing them.

“This is no time for lunch, we have a dilemma,” Didymus scolded.

“Nanya!” Brinth exclaimed again as he held out more flowers.

“Those are Nanya?” Hoggle asked as he looked at flowers that Jareth had wanted cleared from near the city and an idea grew in his mind.

“Nanya! Just Hoggle name knows Nanya?”

“Damn!” Hoggle exclaimed as he remembered the urgency that the Goblin King had placed on eradicating the foliage from the area. The purple flowers evidently blocked his magic. “Brinth, you mean if we eat those flowers that we can’t be turned into goblins.”

“Eat Nanya, no become goblin.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad. Is it bad?”

“No bad, no become goblin.”

“I guess that we all have some flowers to pick,” Hoggle announced as he strode towards a large patch of the flowers and bent to start picking them. It was not long before others had joined him and the patch of purple blossoms was soon denuded before the group spread out in search of more.

The goblins in the city certainly never knew what was occurring and were busy cleaning the castle to meet their new queen’s demands. They were all dead tired as the king had commanded that the city be cleaned as well to remove debris that still remained from the battle of long ago and also from everyday goblin life. The new emphasis on cleanliness had drawn guards from the walls which meant that there weren’t as many eyes watching the approaches to the city gates.

Hoggle, far from where they had started picking Nanya, was with a small group and bent down to pick flowers when a very small being erupted from the plants and began buzzing around his head. He blindly slapped at the creature and was rewarded with a sharp bite to his hand. Fairy!

He was suddenly surrounded by a swarm of the creatures, each one flitting in and out and around him as they attempted to drive him away.

“You’re all lucky I don’t have my pest sprayer.”

One of the small flying things stopped in front of him to hover in front of his face while she spoke.

“It was you! You were the one who hunted us and killed us. All that we wished was to be left alone in our search for food and you killed many. What weapons had we other than our bite? We never harmed you and yet you killed our sisters!”

“I never wanted it to be personal and I’m sorry. Jareth made me kill as many of you as possible, I never knew why he wanted it done he just did.”

“Why are you in our home now?”

“We need the purple flowers to stop Jareth from turning us into goblins when we attack the city.”

“You are going to attack Goblin City? Why?”

“Because Jareth is unfair and he is holding some of our friends prisoner.”

“Why did you throw away your weapon, the one that you used to kill us?”

“Because I was the one being unfair.”

The fairy stopped speaking while she considered what he was saying. The Goblin King had also banished her kind from within the walls of the city but had stopped short of threatening to turn them into goblins, because he knew that he couldn’t. Their magic blocked him from doing anything of the sort and so, frustrated by this, he had sent them out of the city forever. This had angered the fairies as they had once been an integral part of the city and had helped to keep it beautiful.  But one day, feeling threatened by their magic, Jareth had made the same threat that he had to others, defy me and become a goblin. The goblins had enthusiastically herded them out of the city and then Hoggle had been tasked with keeping their numbers down and the sprayer had been deployed against them.

The fairy knew that Jareth wasn’t a bad person, but more like a spoiled child who had always gotten what he wanted. Saying no to him usually resulted in a tantrum and her people had been the recipients of his wrath after one such tantrum. She knew that he had likely forgotten what it was all about and didn’t hold a grudge, she simply wanted to return to the city to do what she liked to, make thing pretty.

“If my people join you in your attack, will you promise that none will die?”

“We don’t want anyone to die! We just want our friends released unharmed and unchanged.”

“We join then, if you will have us.”

“We would and, for what it’s worth," he said slowly with his head hung, "I’m sorry for what I did.”

“My people accept your apology, Hoggle.”

With the fairies no longer swarming around his head Hoggle was able to begin picking the Nanya again and soon had his pouch, which had been supplied by one of the warriors, full of the blossoms. With daylight falling, they finally gathered in a large clearing where they could see the castle in the distance. The fairies settled down on whatever shoulder would take them, with Ludo being nearly covered by them.

“Tonight we march on Goblin City through the tunnels while our friends, the fairies, prepare to go over the walls,” Hoggle announced. “We don’t want anyone to die and hope that it all goes that way. The goblins will be asleep and we want to catch them without weapons. If we can get to the castle without a problem we can storm it and capture Jareth.”

“Just Hoggle name right!” Brinth began. “We no want people die! Just catch the goblins and tie them up. Throw their fighting stuff in the wells and then attack the castle.”

“My people will make certain that the goblins on the walls have other things to think about than an army preparing to attack,” the Fairy leader said. “Goblins don’t like Fairy bites much and we will keep them busy while the army enters the city and moves towards the castle. Once we are ready, my people will enter the castle through the windows and keep those guards busy until we have Jareth.”

“Arrooooo! Arroooooo!”

All turned to look at Ludo and weren’t surprised when a number of large rocks rolled to a stop near him. His part in the battle was clear, the rocks would batter open the city gates and then raise mayhem with any goblins near them. A thundering noise alerted them and all, including Ludo, were stunned when the enormous house-sized boulder came to a stop near the beast.

“Rocks friends!” _(Jim Henson Productions, Labyrinth, 1985, Tri-Star)_

“Indeed they are,” the fairy leader announced as the others laughed.

The gathered allies sat for a short time longer before the fairies took wing and then vanished into the growing darkness as they flew towards the walls of Goblin City. Ludo rose and then walked off into the darkness with the rocks following him while Hoggle, Brinth, and their friends walked towards the opening to the tunnel that they intended to use to bypass the walls of the city. Sir Didymus and Ambrosius led the final group to follow Ludo and the rocks towards the gates to the city. Within a few minutes the clearing was empty except for the remnants of the campfire and a small group of exiled goblins who had decided to join the battle against their king. They had been forced to wait until the other groups were upwind of them and the stench that they carried. Then they too marched on Goblin City and the homes that they had been forced from.

Hoggle walked through the darkness of the tunnel as he munched on the Nanya blossoms. He hoped that they worked for him as well as Ludo, Didymus and Ambrosius because none of them would look good as goblins and might actually end up bound by those that they were even now marching into battle with. The flowers didn’t taste the best, but they were better than becoming a goblin and Hoggle figured that he could put up with some mild inconveniences if he wanted to free Sarah and her daughter.

Brinth’s warriors carried small stones that gave off an eerie light that was sufficient to make the passage safe to use. The stone false alarms were obviously asleep because none of them had been alerted by the passage of so many that were on their way to the city. They walked on for what seemed like forever until they finally reached a ladder that led upwards and then all but two warriors extinguished the stones that they carried. It was only then that Hoggle and Brinth started the ascent to the city streets above and were followed by the warriors from the village.

The goblins on the wall might have actually seen the intruders had they not been distracted by something else. The fairies had come without warning through the darkness and swarmed over them, biting, pinching, and hitting, until the goblins dropped their weapons and fled with some of the fairies in pursuit. The other fairies flitted off to do more mischief with the few goblins that actually presented a possible problem for the attack.

The goblins at the gate had also encountered fairies and now had fled their posts to run screaming into the night with the fairies, which could see quite well in the dark, chasing them. Ludo came to a stop outside the gates with the rocks and Sir Didymus’ troops behind him. The guards absence meant that they could begin the assault and Ludo stepped aside to allow the rocks to pass.

A moment later, the enormous boulder rumbled forward and then crashed into the gates, causing no small amount of damage or noise. This also had the unfortunate effect of waking the entire city and the king within the castle as the great doors were torn off of their hinges and fell to the ground with a loud CLANG!

The battle for Goblin City and the freedom of the Underground, as well as that of Sarah and Emma, had begun.


	11. Chapter 11

Jareth, hearing the enormous crash of the gates falling, rushed to the window in his throne room to see his goblins already in a panic. The guards were no longer on the walls and this didn’t strike him as funny. There was no way that they would be rushing towards the loud noise because their first instinct would be to flee. What did strike him as being rather odd was that the few goblins that he could see were doing some sort of odd dance and waving their arms in the air while running in circles or not attempting to move away from where they were.

A goblin rushed into the throne room and nearly fell on his face on the floor that had been polished as best as possible. He stood looking around the very alien throne room with wide eyes and then finally recovered enough to speak to the impatiently waiting Goblin King.

“Your Majesty, the city gates have been knocked down by a huge rock and more rocks are storming the city streets.”

Rocks? Jareth’s eyes widened as he realized what that meant. The great furry beast that Sarah had befriended had returned despite the warning not to and, if he had, likely Hoggle and the small knight had as well. He had wondered if they would heed his warnings and now it appeared that they had not. Now they would become a part of his army, his promise to Sarah to leave them as they were be damned. 

Of all of the things that he had lost, the power to turn someone into a goblin was not one of them. He had managed to arrest and then to reverse the process for Sarah’s daughter, but her friends were not going to be so fortunate. He reached into his pocket and withdrew one of the crystals that he still had. This one was special for it above all others had the power to turn its victims into goblins. It would sweep over the city turning all who were not already residents of the city into permanent guests. Sarah and Emma would be safe, for they were in his castle and therefore safe from the power of the gem.

“I never thought that I would have to use this,” he said to himself before drawing his arm back and casting it out into the darkness over the sprawling city.

Hoggle emerged from the darkness of the tunnel to step into an empty street. The sounds of the rocks entering the city reached his ears and he smiled as he understood that his plan was underway. Ludo had summoned the rocks and had sent them ahead, while the fairies were keeping the goblins far too busy to pay attention to the growing number of warriors who were appearing behind the walls. Brinth’s warriors spread out and soon were capturing great numbers of goblins who were not only stunned by the crash of the falling doors, but also terrified by the fearsome soldiers who had interrupted their confusion by bursting into their homes and quickly tying them up. The captives were soon being herded towards a central gathering point where they could be guarded before the warriors continued their rampage through the ramshackle town.

Jareth watched with disbelief as the warriors that he could see failed to turn into goblins and in fact ran towards his castle even more quickly. He turned to the still present goblin to give what he feared might be his final orders as Goblin King.

“Call out the Castle Guard! I want them stopped at the square! I don’t want one of them to set foot in this castle. Bring me Sarah and her daughter as well, they may have to be used for bargaining.”

The goblin bowed to his king and then turned to run out of the room only to slip and fall on the uncharacteristically slick floor. Jareth didn’t admit it or say anything, but he found the plight of the messenger funny and was barely able to prevent laughter from escaping his lips. The goblin managed to rise and soon was hurrying down a corridor, the sound of his cursing about his bruised knees and nose audible for a long time.

Sarah and Emma had been awakened rudely by the noise of the gates falling. They rose from the bed that they were sharing and rushed to the window to see the rocks racing through the streets of the town. They were nearly ready to congratulate themselves on their freedom when the door to their chamber swung open and several guards entered with their weapons drawn.

“Yous is gonna come wid us to see da king!”

The women nodded silently and then were herded towards the stairs which led to the throne room. They looked at each other with fear filled eyes as the goblins forced them towards their destination and finally stood before Jareth the Goblin King. He stood in the center of the chamber with his arms folded and a stern gaze upon his countenance. 

“Your friends have decided to ignore my warnings, Sarah. They have stormed the gates to my city and even now are approaching the castle. My army is preparing to meet them, not to kill them, but to hold them in captivity until whatever magic they are using to prevent the transformation to goblins wears off. I told you once not to defy me, but somehow I believe that you have been doing that very thing all along.”

“I don’t know what you are talking about.”

“Oh, you don’t, do you, Sarah? You have done everything in your power to usurp my authority over the goblins. This chamber is but a mere example of what you have done to displace me as the ruler of the Labyrinth. The time to teach you a lesson that you will never forget has arrived.”

Jareth advanced on the women and then reached out to seize Emma by the arm to forcefully pull her away from her mother’s side. Sarah screamed as her child was taken from her and would have interceded had it not been for the very sharp weapons that the goblins surrounding her pointed in her direction.

“What are you going to do to her?”

“What I should have done in the first place," he snarled. "I’m going to make her into one of my goblins for all time. Then I’ll send her down to help fight the army that is converging on the castle.”

“Please don’t hurt my child,” Sarah pled.

“Hurt her?" Jareth mocked. "I’m going to give her a new life and purpose, Sarah. I wonder how she’ll look as a goblin. We almost found out not long ago, perhaps it’s time to let magic take its course.”

Emma tried to cry out to her mother but only a hoarse croak emerged and Sarah could only watch as her child was transformed into a goblin. The woman watched in horror was the girl shrank to the height normal for a goblin and then her features began to change to the grotesque. Her eyes turned to the red so common to Jareth’s troops and her skin darkened while also becoming coarse. The beautiful dark hair shrank until it vanished into the scalp of the thing and what remained on the head of the creature that Emma was becoming was stringy and sparse. The clothing that the girl had worn now resembled that of the other goblins and Jareth finally released her arm before giving her directions.

“Go out there and help the army fight off the invaders!”

Sarah screamed as the thing that had been her child turned and scurried away after accepting a sword from a goblin that was nearby.

“If anything happens to her, I’ll kill you Jareth,” Sarah screamed at him at the top of her lungs.

“Oh really, Sarah, enough of the dramatics, they don’t suit you.”

“I want my daughter back.”

“If my army wins then definitely she will be back if not, well, you’ll just have to live with the loss.”

The goblin that had been Emma raced down the stairs while its head swam with confusion. Unlike the babies that had been transformed into goblins, her memories still existed and she had a plan in mind. Instead of following its king’s orders, the Emma/goblin turned and ran towards something that it had seen before, something that would turn the tide in the favor of her friends and mother. An exploratory feel in the pockets of what had been blue jeans revealed the red bandana that she was so fond of. Her mother hated it when she wore it, but now it had the potential to save her life should she be captured by the invaders. It was quickly wrapped around her head and ears and she continued on her way to the large catapult that stood at the top of the castle parapets and overlooked the city below.

A quick search of the area around the catapult revealed a number of small rock-like items resting in boxes at the ready. The spider webs clinging to them told her that they had been there for a very long time and likely had been forgotten by everyone. A glance over the parapet revealed the gathered goblin army as it prepared for a surprise attack against the warriors led by Hoggle and Brinth. She hurried back to the catapult and examined it carefully, quickly determining how it worked. The items in the boxes were obviously ammunition and were small enough for her to handle alone. The sword in her hands gave her an inspiration and she rushed back to the door that she had used to slam it shut and then jammed the sword between the door and its frame. There was no way that the goblins would be able to push it open to stop what she was about to do.

She raced back to the catapult to begin throwing items into its basket after using the crank to lower it enough to be loaded. There was no way to determine how far the ammunition would fly when released and she knew that it would be a matter of trial and error before she found the correct range. All that she could do was hope that she didn’t hit the army that was there to rescue herself and her mother. A moment later, after a swift look at the scene below, she released the lever that held the arm of the catapult down. Free at last, it swung upward and the ammunition was released to fly over the heads of the goblins and those that they opposed to crash into a house that stood taller than most. A terrible sound emerged and suddenly the house collapsed into the street next to it, nearly flattening several of Brinth’s warriors.

“Oops,” she muttered in the goblin equivalent of the word as she began to crank the arm down again, only this time not putting as much tension on the arm. In fact, she put almost no tension on the arm and then began to load the basket once again just as the goblins prepared to go over the wall that they were behind and the battle was about to begin.

WHOOSH!

The next load of ammunition took flight and this time the results were much more satisfying. The rocks and other pieces of debris crashed to earth near the goblins, sending them over the wall in a panic with many of them forgetting their weapons in the process. The shouts of fear and pain echoed up to the Emma/goblin as she cranked the catapult back to full strength and then loaded it. There was a group of goblins marching on the rear flank of the army fighting the courtyard force. She let fly once again and then stood to watch the fall of her shot.

The goblin in the lead was urging his soldiers forward and they could hear the sounds of fighting, which had them roused into a fighting excitement. One of them happened to look up to see a huge number of objects flying through the air at them and wondered what they were. The small rock that hit him on top of the head shoved his helmet down around his ears and over his eyes as they rolled back in his head and he muttered a single word.

“Ouch!”

None of his fellows noticed this as they began to dodge the falling shot or screech in pain and panic as they were hit by the attack.

“Ey, what the….?”

“Ow, who threw dat rock?”

“I wanna go home!"

“OWWWW!”

“Retreat!”

The screams and mixed commands confused the other soldiers, who had no way of knowing what was happening and had yet to face the fury of the catapult that even then was sending another load their direction. The shower of rocks and other debris, including sections of roof tiles that had been knocked off of neighboring houses, convinced the approaching troops that perhaps a better idea was to turn around and go home. They didn’t get far before they were surrounded by the already bruised and angered warriors of Brinth. A short time later they were being herded towards the large area where captives were being held and their weapons were residing at the bottom of a well.

WHOOOSH!

Another group of rocks flew through the air to scatter a few goblins who had decided to make a stand and they turned to run, only to encounter Didymus and his force. They had been running full tilt when a net dropped on top of them and shoved them to the ground while the small knight dictated terms to the captives.

“Now that you have surrendered I assure you fair treatment. Once we have determined just how to free you from this net we shall accompany you to prison.” 

A few goblins had realized that they were under attack from the castle and now were running up the stairs in an effort to reach the door that led to the catapult. All was going well until they encountered the marbles that Emma/goblin had scattered on the floor at the top of the stairs. Screeches of fright and confusion echoed through the corridor followed by the sounds of armored bodies tumbling down stairs, metal clanging on stone.

The roar of the goblin cannon might have foretold doom to the approaching force, but another WHOOSH scattered the crew that fed the monstrosity while the lone cannon shot obliterated the roof of a house that already teetered on the verge of disaster. A sudden crash and cloud of dust rising into the air betrayed the collapse of the structure and yet more work to improve the infrastructure of the city.

Emma was having a tremendous amount of fun as she sent yet another load of ammunition towards Jareth’s goblins. The army of the city was in near rout and the army led by Hoggle and Brinth was closing rapidly on their objective while Ludo, the rocks and Sir Didymus’ group finished closing the net behind the goblins to prevent an attack from behind and a retreat from in front. The fairies continued their assault, nearly driving the few remaining defenders crazy as the tiny creatures vented their rage.

WHOOSH!

Another basket full of rocks flew through the air to begin raining down on a group of goblins that had taken refuge behind a large wall in preparation for an ambush. The terrified creatures raced away from their hiding spot just as the cannon roared yet again.

BOOM!

Emma/goblin could only duck and run for cover as the shot from the cannon, which had been turned to face the castle, bounced off of the parapet and dislodged several stones. The catapult, already cranked down and loaded, was jostled enough that it unleashed its fire.

WOOOSH!

The shot, not aimed at all, lobbed through the air and began to land on and around Brinth’s warriors, who scrambled in terror at this unexpected and unfamiliar attack. Several dropped their weapons and scurried for cover as the goblins, sensing a rally, surged forward to engage their opponents. The forces met in the middle just as rocks began to surge into the fray with Ludo urging them forward.

“AROOOOOO! AROOOOOO!”

Jareth flinched as another shot from the cannon shattered more stone from the parapet above while Sarah struggled against the hold that the goblin guards had on her. Neither she nor Jareth were under any mistaken impression as to what was happening and this had Jareth worried. He was afraid that the cannon might actually kill the girl, and this possibility would make Sarah unmanageable. The death of her daughter would urge every bit of defiance possible from the woman and he didn’t want to face that prospect.

BOOM!

Emma/goblin watched as the parapet collapsed and then the floor of the area began to follow it as she scrambled towards the sword that was jammed into the doorframe. A glance over her shoulder saw the catapult, which had seen its last battle, vanish over the edge of the falling floor as it tumbled downward.

“EMMA!!”

Sarah could see the falling stone and then the catapult and braced herself for the possibility of seeing a small body falling with the debris. 

BOOM!

More stone fell earthward and the crew of the cannon were congratulating themselves before realizing that they needed to beat a hasty retreat to avoid being squashed by the falling tower. Squealing in terror they managed to clear the area just as their weapon vanished under tons of fallen stone. A loud rumble and a cloud of dust told all that the tower was in its death throes and then the armies below scattered as the massive structure fell to the ground.

“CHAARGGEE!!” 

Didymus screamed the command as he urged his troops forward as the stunned goblins tried to recover their senses. Everyone was covered with dust from the collapsed tower and, at times, it was hard to tell friend from foe. The battle continued although the severely outnumbered goblins were beginning to lay down their weapons and surrender.

Jareth watched all of this from his window and ignored what was happening behind him. He turned towards her as Sarah slammed her heel down on the foot of one of her guards. She jerked her arms free of the others that held her and raced towards the king brought her to this place and robbed her of her child. She slammed into the Goblin King and brought them both down onto the floor hard as she rained blow after blow onto him.

“God damn you Jareth! God damn you to Hell! She was only a baby and you took her from me!”

The goblin guards raced forward to drag her from over their king and Sarah gave them a terrible fight as they grabbed her in that effort. Several of the goblins found themselves fighting for what they feared were their lives as the woman vented her rage upon them. Jareth simply lay where he was as a tear escaped his eye to run down a now bruised and scratched cheek. 

The goblins finally managed to drag her free of him and he was able to climb back to his feet where he issued an edict that stunned them.

“She’s right! Her daughter was only a child and I have robbed her of that child. Release her now and spread the word for my army to surrender. There is no reason for anyone else to get hurt. I’ve done enough harm. Release the woman now and spread my command. Order all soldiers to lay down their weapons and return to their homes, any who fail to do so may report to the Bog of Eternal Stench.”

The goblins released Sarah and hurried away from the room as fast as the polished floor would let them. Abruptly they heard and surprised squawk and then the sound of armor as the wearer bounced down the stairs amid cursing from those that fell with him. Jareth turned to Sarah to see her on her knees, face in hands and her shoulders shaking as she sobbed. He swallowed hard and then approached her before kneeling down to reach out to her.

“Sarah…”

The woman’s head snapped up and she glared into his eyes with both pain and fury plain on her face.

“I am so sorry for your loss, Sarah, I never meant for any of this to happen.”

“YOU KILLED MY CHILD, JARETH!!! YOU’VE TAKEN THE MOST VALUABLE AND DEAR THING THAT I HAVE AND DESTROYED IT!!! NOTHING THAT YOU COULD EVER DO WILL REPLACE WHAT YOU HAVE STOLEN FROM ME AND I WILL NEVER FORGIVE YOU FOR THIS!!!”

Jareth bowed his head and, for the first time, Sarah realized just how old looking he appeared. She was about to say more when she noticed the tears that were dripping onto the polished stone floor below them and knew that they weren’t coming from her eyes. The Goblin King looked up at her with a pain-filled gaze that nearly filled her with pity, but she couldn’t summon that emotion. She rose and walked out of the throne room leaving Jareth to hang his head as he cried.

The battle outside ended swiftly as word spread of the surrender of the Goblin King to the woman from outside. Goblin after goblin walked forward to lay down his weapon before being herded to the place where the other goblins were being held before being allowed to return home. Hoggle walked through the ravaged city and was stunned when he saw the damage done to the castle and the absence of the catapult which had stood guard over the place for as long as he could remember. The tower on which it had stood was gone, now only a pile of rubble that sagged against the castle walls or filled the courtyard below.

Ludo emerged from between two houses and the dust covered friends hugged for a while until Ambrosius and Sir Didymus appeared as well to join the group. They had all survived the battle and were pleased. In fact, as far as they knew, there had been no fatalities on either side although many would sport nasty bruises and contusions for a long while.

Brinth was busy as his warriors took control of the city and barely noticed the filth that covered his body courtesy of the destruction around them. He noticed Hoggle and nearly leapt forward to greet his friend.

“Just Hoggle name is well?”

“Yes, I’m well.”

“The doors to the castle are open, Sir Hoggle,” Didymus announced. “I can see Lady Sarah emerging from the castle it is truly all over. Jareth has been defeated once and for all.”

The friends ran forward to be reunited with the woman and came to a sudden stop when they got near enough to realize that her face was covered with tears and she didn’t look pleased with the turn of events at all.

“My Lady, you appear to be in distress. But why, we have defeated the goblin army and clearly the Goblin King has surrendered.”

“Emma…” Sarah said in a near whisper as tears fell down her face.

“My Lady, where is Lady Emma?”

Those standing around her were stunned by the next words out of her mouth as a fresh torrent of tears burst from her eyes.

“Emma is dead! She died in the collapse of the tower. My child is gone and will never come back.”


	12. Chapter 12

The next two days were consumed by the organization of the goblins into a semblance of work crews as they labored at clearing the debris from the battle. Sarah had waited in dread as she assumed that every goblin messenger which hurried into the dust covered throne room would bring news of the discovery of her child’s body. But it hadn’t happened yet.

Jareth had not been seen since Sarah had walked out of the room upon his surrender. He had retreated to some obscure part of the castle to consider what had occurred because of his obsession with Sarah. The woman assumed that he had gone to the part of the castle where gravity had no bearing, the very part of the castle where she had been able to recover Toby and gain her release the first time she had visited the land.

Ludo had been an invaluable tool as his friendship with the rocks had convinced them to move to where he wanted them and the tower that had fallen was rapidly taking shape once again, although many tons of stone remained where they had fallen. The shattered catapult had been removed and now lay forgotten with the rest of the wooden wreckage and all knew that sooner or later they were likely to make a heartbreaking discovery. But the friends didn’t falter, Sarah needed this far too much and none of them wanted to disappoint her. The fairies and the remnants of magic around the castle helped the goblin stonemasons place the very heavy stones as more and more debris from the place where the catapult had stood was revealed. There was a cry of discovery which brought all work to a stop and all looked in the direction from which it had come. A goblin stood looking down at something and all feared the worst.

Sarah looked up as the goblin messenger raced into the room and stopped in front of her. He didn’t raise his eyes and she felt a terrible feeling grow within her being.

“They’ve found something, haven’t they?”

“Me was sent here to tell you that they finds something.”

“Show me.”

Sarah rose from where she was sitting and followed the creature out to the worksite to find several grim looking workers standing around something on the ground. She steeled herself for what she knew that she might see and then stepped forward to see the sword that lay on the ground. It was the very sword that she had seen in the hand of her child. A piece of shredded cloth that she recognized lay next to it and she felt the sob building within her core as she knelt next to it.

Hoggle stepped forward to place his hand on her shoulder while she cried and felt a tear of his own as he silently waved the others away.

“I’m sorry, Sarah,” he consoled quietly. “I didn’t know her, but if she was anything like you she was something.”

Sarah nodded as the words were spoken and then looked up along with everyone else as a familiar voice spoke.

“You’ve found something?”

All looked up at Jareth and gasped as they saw how old he appeared. His hair had grown gray and his face was covered with the lines reserved for the very old.

“This,” Sarah said as she held up the cloth for him to see, “is all that I have left of my daughter. This is all that I have left to remind me of her. I hope that you are happy, Jareth, because that’s something that I can never be again.”

“Sarah, if I could change it all I would, please believe me when I tell you that.”

“I won’t go home until they find her.”

“There is a place here if you want it.”

“I can’t stay. There are too many terrible memories in this place.”

Jareth nodded and then turned to walk back into his castle. A small goblin, one of many too small to be of use in the heavy work going on outside and therefore assigned to cleaning in the castle, hurried to step out of his way as he traversed the throne room and he paid it no mind. The time for him to notice them was gone and would likely never return. He walked on past and ignored the creature as it set to sweeping the floor in the throne room. There was a lot to be done and every little bit helped although he didn’t see how.

The loss of the girl had indeed turned Sarah firmly against him and what made things worse was the fact that his powers seemed to have escaped him so, even when they found the remains of the girl, he doubted very highly if he could return the women home. Even simple things, things that he had once done without thought, seemed to be insurmountable at the moment and he wondered if that would ever change.

Sarah watched as another large stone was lifted from its resting place and moved back to where it had been in the wall. Being a keystone it needed to be present because, although the catapult would never be placed back where it was, the castle was unstable without that tower and in danger of gradual collapse. She tensed every time a stone was shifted; not wanting to see what remained of Emma after the tons of stone had fallen so far but also hoping that somehow the child had escaped the disaster.

Brinth’s warriors were also busy as they helped to clear the streets of the battle debris, there would be a place for them within the city and they were enthusiastic about being allowed to return. It had all been a part of the surrender agreement and they were ready to help rebuild the place that would be their home.

The fairies were using what magic they had to help lift the stones, although the engineers among the goblins had been swift to erect scaffolding and equipment to help with the process. Already they had managed to lift several very heavy stones back into place and had made headway in the reconstruction of that section of the castle. Ludo had been instrumental in the effort, using his capabilities to urge the stones into place, some of them actually rolling up the makeshift ramps to move into place by themselves. The goblins not skilled enough to help with the actual construction had been put to task clearing the wreckage and sorting the stones into piles according to size. This had greatly accelerated the search for Emma and Sarah dreaded the discovery that she knew would probably happen.

She turned and walked back into the castle, nearly colliding with a small goblin that was busy sweeping the floor. The creature looked up at her and she smiled at it before moving on, the tiny being seemed to be a constant presence and she often encountered it during her travels within the corridors.

 _‘It’s almost as if you try to run into me. Surely not, surely you cannot be my…’_ she thought as an idea came into her mind.

“Emma?” Sarah said to the tiny creature.

The tiny creature dropped the broom and looked at her with wide tear-filled eyes before approaching her and pulling a very familiar red bandana out of its pocket before wrapping it around its head.

“Emma?” she said again as she dropped to her knees and the goblin ran to her to hug her. “Is it really you, Emma?”

The small creature nodded slowly and looked into the eyes of the woman that hugged it. Jareth stepped into the room and took in the scene for a moment before realizing what was occurring before him. Sarah, sensing his presence and seeing the fear the eyes of the small creature, turned to face the Goblin King.

“Restore her, Jareth, restore my daughter.”

“I don’t know if I can, Sarah, the power of the crystals is broken.”

“You can try can’t you?”

Jareth the Goblin King stepped forward to reach out and touch the tiny creature just as one of the fairies swept into the room. The tiny goblin, still fearing the one who had imprisoned her in this strange body, attempted to pull away and then something unexpected happened. The queen of the fairies, realizing what had happened, lent her own magic to the attempt and suddenly Sarah was holding her daughter once again.

Emma looked into her mother’s eyes she returned to her normal form. Her clothing was a bit askew and had a few rips and her hair was a tangled mess. Streaks of dirt and grime covered her face and she looked as though she needed a bath badly.

“Mom?”

“Emma, you’re you again and I couldn’t be happier.”

Sarah hugged her child tightly and reveled in the sensation of the girl returning the affection.

“I was so worried that I would never see you again, Em. I thought that you were gone forever.”

“I was starting to be gone forever.”

Sarah pulled back to look deeply into the eyes of the girl.

“What do you mean that you were starting to be gone forever?”

“When I first became a goblin, I still remembered nearly everything but it was getting really hard to remember what I should. The only thing that didn’t fade was that you were my mom and that you had told me that you would always love me. I think that that was what saved me, knowing that you would always love me, even if I was a goblin.”

“Em, we all thought that you had died when the tower collapsed. How did you escape?”

“I almost didn’t, Mom. The sword that they gave me almost killed me.”

“How?”

“I had used it to jam the door out onto the area where the catapult was and it was sharp enough that I had a really hard time pulling it free. The floor was starting to fall from under me when I finally managed to get it loose and open the door. If it had taken another minute to get it loose I would probably be dead.”

“Where have you been since then?”

“I’ve been wandering the castle looking for a way to turn back into me. I would see you sometimes and wanted to try to let you know it was me but _he_ was always around,” Emma answered as she glared at Jareth. “I didn’t want you in trouble with him. I don’t even know who won the battle.”

“Everyone won, Emma,” an unexpected voice answered and the women looked at Jareth. “Everyone won, the labyrinth has been reunited instead of being divided the way that it has been for too many years. We’re going to rebuild the city and instead of being a king I just want to be a resident of the city, if they’ll have me.”

Hoggle stepped into the room to give Sarah an update and stopped short as he saw not only her but a young woman who reminded him very much of Sarah as she had been the first time he had met her. Sarah turned in his direction and reached up to slap her forehead softly.

“Hoggle, you need to let them know that they don’t have to search for my daughter. She’s alive and well and in my arms,” Sarah said as she turned back to her child and kissed Emma gently on the forehead as she hugged her.

The small man turned and hurried outside to deliver the news and it was apparent that he had as a loud cheer rose from the crowd that had been at work clearing the debris from the battle. He returned a short time later with Ludo, Sir Didymus and Ambrosius to the room where the women and Jareth stood to gaze with amazement at the girl that had been returned to her parent. Hoggle stepped forward to take Emma’s hand and introduce himself.

“I’m Hoggle, a friend of your mother’s and it’s very good to meet you, Emma.”

“It’s good to meet you too.”

The room was soon filled with goblins, warriors from Brinth’s village, fairies and it was all very noisy as all celebrated the safe return of the girl to her mother. Emma, keenly aware of the state of her clothing and the dirt that covered her body finally quietly excused herself to return to the bedchamber that she had shared with her mother. There was a bathtub there that she hoped was full of hot water and she wanted to take advantage of it.

Sarah, tired of the chaos, followed her daughter and found the girl immersed in hot water while she cleaned the grime from her hair and body. Her clothing was already being tended to by a female goblin that was doing an excellent job of not only cleaning them, but patching the damage as well. Emma looked up at her mother as Sarah entered the room and smiled.

“This feels so wonderful, Mom. I got here and it was already full of water and bubbles, just what I wanted! How did they know?”

“I don’t know, Em, but at least I’ll have a clean daughter once you get out.”

“Do you think that we’ll ever get to go home?”

“Yeah, I think that we will. We have to because you have a paper to write for school.”

Emma groaned at the thought and then giggled abruptly as mischief filled her eyes.

“I have a wonderful idea for it, because who would believe that any of this was real? I have an A+ in the making even while I’m sitting in this bathtub.”

Sarah laughed and reached out to ruffle the hair of her child as Emma playfully blew some of the bubbles at her.

“I love you so much, Emma.”

“I love you too, Mom.”

The women talked quietly while Emma bathed and finally the girl stepped out of the bathtub to be wrapped in a plush warm towel that had simply appeared. She roughed herself dry and then slipped into clean clothing that was patched neatly. The female goblin hurried out of the room and Emma watched as her mother undressed before climbing into a freshly filled tub of hot water. Somehow the castle knew exactly what they wanted and was filling those wants.

When they finally returned to the room below they found Jareth looking very much as he always had. His youthful appearance had returned and he looked as fey as ever.

“They’ve returned, Sarah.”

Sarah looked at the man who seemed have regained some of his swagger.

“Who returned, Jareth?”

“My powers, I’ve regained the use of them. The crystals are back and at full strength. Thank you.”

“For what, Jareth?”

“Because of you and Emma I have regained the ability to make changes here in the Underground and I intend to make good on my promises to you. I shall return you and your daughter to your home whenever you are ready.”

“And you’ll leave us alone?”

“If that is what you desire, although you shall always be welcome to visit any time that you wish. All that you need to do is tell us and we will see to it that you make it here and then home again safely. That goes for both of you.”

Emma looked up at her mother and smiled.

“Could we, Mom?”

“Could we what?”

“Come here sometimes? I really kind of liked it, except for getting turned into a goblin and being thrown into that big hole.”

Sarah smiled and nodded as her daughter giggled and hugged her.

“How would you feel about coming back for your birthday?”

Emma’s eyes widened and she smiled as she nodded.

“I’d love it.”

Jareth looked at the pair before him and nodded as he smiled.

“We shall see you both then for a great celebration.”

Sarah looked at her gathered friends and then spoke to them as she and Emma started to fade from their view.

“I promise that I’ll be back and I won’t forget you.”

“Goodbye Sarah and Emma,” Hoggle answered, “don’t be gone long.”

“Farewell, my Ladies Sarah and Emma, be well,” Didymus added.

“Goodbye Sawah and Emma,” Ludo finished as the mother and daughter vanished.

The three friends, and Ambrosius, gathered around Jareth and looked up at the Goblin King as he spoke to them.

“I’m going to keep my promises to Sarah, you are all free to return home if you wish or you may remain here in the city.”

“You’re not angry?”

Jareth turned to Hoggle and shook his head.

“No, Hoggle, I’m not angry.”

The friends nodded and then turned to leave the city, knowing that it would be rebuilt the next time that they saw it if Jareth’s powers truly had returned. They would bid farewell to Brinth’s people and then leave the city behind them. They would walk together for a long while until they separated and walked on alone to their homes secure in the knowledge that things would be better now.

Sarah and Emma appeared in the kitchen of their home and a glance at the clock told them that they had only been gone a few hours, despite the impression that they had been away for much longer.

“Mom!” Emma said with surprise in her voice, “we’ve only been gone three hours.”

“Yeah, I’d noticed, which means that you can still take the garbage out and get some of that homework done.”

“You know,” the girl said as she picked up the garbage bag that had been waiting for her, “if I was still a goblin I couldn’t do this. The bag is way too heavy for a goblin to move.”

“Well, you’re _not_ a goblin, you’re my daughter and that garbage bag isn’t going to move itself to the trash can. Go on, get it over with.”

“Okay,” the girl answered with mischief in her eyes.

Sarah shook her head and smiled as her child hurried out the door to take the bag to the waiting garbage can. Things were going to be better now and she knew that  
she could count on it. A few minutes later the girl returned and closed the door behind her as she joined her mother in a walk to their living room.

“I’ve been thinking about something, Emma.”

“What’s that?”

“That you’re going to need this.”

“What?”

The teen watched as her mother unlocked the desk drawer that held her phone and then pulled the item out to hand it to her daughter.

“Get those grades back up and that paper done, please.”

“Okay, Mom.”

Sarah kissed her child and then ruffled the dark hair of her daughter.

“I love you so much please don’t ever forget that, okay?”

“I love you too, Mom.”

“Now get back upstairs and get some of that paper done.”

“Okay,” Emma chirped in response.

Sarah hugged her child tightly, holding her for a long moment before releasing her and then watched as the girl bounced back up the stairs to her room. She smiled as she thought about the girl and the adventure that they had just shared.

_‘I love you so much, Emma, don’t ever forget it and we will go back there for your birthday. I can’t wait to see what all they will have accomplished by then.’_


	13. Chapter 13

_Two Days Later_

Emma stood of front of her spellbound class while she read part of her paper and her teacher, Mrs. Lockwood, nodded with approval.

“The girl learned a valuable lesson that day and that was to never wish for something that could potentially lead to trouble. Jareth, the Goblin King, had taught her that lesson just as he had taught that very lesson to her mother so many years before. In short the old saying “Be careful what you wish for” proved to be very true and taught the girl something that she would never forget.”

“As for her friends, Hoggle, Ludo, Sir Didymus and his mount Ambrosius, Jareth allowed them to decide whether to live in Goblin City or return home which brings this story to a close as they all decided that there was no place like home, an adage that the girl would carry in her heart for the remainder of her life.”

The members of the class clapped politely and Emma walked back to the waiting teacher to hand over the folder containing the pages of the completed paper.

“That was excellent work, Emma, I almost felt as though you were talking about a true experience that you had lived instead of fiction that you had made up. The characters and events were so realistic and easy to envision. I think that it’s easy to say that you have earned an A+ for both the writing and the presentation and I fully intend to submit this piece to the Young Writer’s Competition. I think that you have a very good chance of winning a prize with this.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Lockwood.”

“I sincerely hope to see more work like this from you, it was wonderful.”

“Oh, you will, I have so many ideas for more like this.”

The teen turned and walked back to her desk to settle down as they waited for the bell to ring and the next class to begin. Emma knew that the teacher would likely search the internet for the piece that she believed that the girl had copied and would be terribly disappointed when nothing turned up. The bell rang and Emma rose with her classmates to walk to math class where the girl intended to make a turnaround as well. They had been very close to disaster many times while she and her mother visited the Underground and they had been given another chance, something that Emma had no intent on wasting. She entered the classroom and settled down into her seat while the teacher prepared to present the lesson to the class.

Sarah sat at the desk in her office while she worked on the report that she had been assigned to complete. Things were better, almost incredible, at home since they had returned and while she appreciated it she also knew that she was the single parent of a teenager and things could change in a heartbeat.

Still, right now things were good and she was going to enjoy them while they lasted. A moment later the report was finished and she hit the SEND tab on her desktop. She relaxed in her chair and looked out through the window towards the town basking in the afternoon sun.

‘We’ll go back for your birthday, Em, because I never want to lose touch with our friends again.’

Several months later, on Emma’s birthday, they made the trip back to the Underground to find their friends happy to see them, the castle rebuilt and the city a wonderful place. Everywhere they went they were welcomed and a huge celebration was held in honor of the young woman. The day was filled with joy and friendship and Jareth played the gracious host of the party in the castle. While he no longer called himself the Goblin King the goblins and other residents of the city had all agreed that he was the logical choice to run things. Jareth had made a point of leaving things as they were, concentrating on improving the lives of his former subjects but had issued one supreme edict.

“UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES, UNLESS THERE IS TRUE DANGER TO THE CHILD, ARE ANY MORE BABIES OR CHILDREN TO BE STOLEN!”

Emma rose at the end of the party to give some gifts of her own and the crowd watched with anticipation as she made her presentations.

“To Hoggle, I know how much you love jewelry so I made this in Art class just for you. I even put your name on it.”

Hoggle accepted the gift while also trying to hide not only tears but also a blushing face.

“To Ludo, I have a new pet rock for you to tame.

“AROOOO!”

The rock jumped out of the hand of the girl and hurried to the side of the great ginger colored beast.

“To Sir Didymus, I have some tea that I think that you will enjoy.

“My Lady!”

“Ambrosius, I have a raw hide bone for you to enjoy.”

The large dog hurried forward to accept his prize as Emma turned to Jareth.

“I could never forget you, Jareth.

All eyes turned to the former Goblin King and then the girl spoke.

“You may not be king anymore, but you really should have possessed a crown when you were. So I made this one for you in class.”

Emma stepped forward to place the crown on Jareth’s head as he bowed before her and then took her hand to kiss it.

Sarah stood watching and then frowned as Emma pulled an envelope out of the bag that she had carefully guarded.

“Finally, to Mom, I have something that you have been wanting for a long time.”

She stepped forward to hand the envelope to her mother and Sarah opened it to see a report card from school that was filled with A’s.”

“I guess that you’ll have to punish me, Mom, I got that two days ago and lied about not having it. I wanted to present it to you today.”

Sarah hugged her child and then they returned to the party that had resumed. The festivities went on for a long time and only ended when Sarah knew that they had to go home. Emma had school the next day.

They said goodbye to their friends and soon were preparing to leave. Jareth gave them his half-smile and then, with a wave of his hand, they vanished from the town to appear back in their home. Emma looked at the clock and then at her mother with disappointment.

“We were there all day and only an hour passed here. We should go back and spend a week! I’d still be on time for school tomorrow!”

“You, my dear, are going upstairs to spend some time in the shower and then in bed.”

“Okay,” the girl answered as she grinned at her mother and then hugged her. She pulled free of her parent and was preparing to go up to her room when Sarah called to her. Emma turned and saw her mother holding out one final present.

“Since your story did so well in the competition I decided that you could have this for your bookshelf.”

“What is it?”

“Open it and find out.”

Emma pulled the paper open and away from the item within the wrapping. She looked down at it with wide eyes and then smiled before kissing her mother on the cheek. Then she turned and ran up the stairs with her present in her hand.

It was a book with a red cover with the title of the book printed in gold on that cover.

 THE LABYRINTH

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This brings my story, but not necessarily theirs to an end. I am giving thought to another tale, but that will be on hold for a while so that I can repost stories that had been on Harrypotterfanfiction.com.


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